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Speaker 1: M you have the story in itself, right, this is

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Speaker 1: a boy who likes to go on coon hunt's when

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Speaker 1: is your basic story? And you think, well, you know, okay,

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Speaker 1: that's interesting, let's read about it. But then a great

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Speaker 1: writer will tell a story with depth, meaning that when

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Speaker 1: he goes in the coon hunt, he learns about how

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Speaker 1: to behave, how to treat your fellow man right, the

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Speaker 1: pitfalls of of lying and treachery, cunning and ambition and resilience.

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Speaker 1: On this episode of the Bear Grease Podcast, we're exploring

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Speaker 1: a great work of American literature whose plot rides on

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Speaker 1: a most peculiar but beloved pastime of rural America, coon hunting.

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Speaker 1: We're diving deep into the book Where the Red Fern Grows,

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Speaker 1: written by Woodrow Wilson Rawls. How did this unlikely author,

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Speaker 1: a one hit wonder some might say, with such a

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Speaker 1: mysterious past, make it into the ranks of American literary giants.

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Speaker 1: Well here from Professor Sean Tutan, as we search out

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Speaker 1: the national impact of the book. We'll talk with Stuart Peterson,

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Speaker 1: who starred in the original nineteen seventy four movie, and

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Speaker 1: we'll cut some hounds loose on the story Ozark Night

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Speaker 1: with a man who's been devoted to red bone hounds

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Speaker 1: his whole life, the ride is guaranteed to be wild

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Speaker 1: as we search out that one time when coon hunting

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Speaker 1: did a three sixties slam dunk on mainstream culture and

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Speaker 1: they loved it. You're not gonna want to miss this one. Boys.

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Speaker 1: My dad had red bones when I was just just

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Speaker 1: a little fella. The first I remember, I was probably

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Speaker 1: five or six, and he had a three legged dog

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Speaker 1: that he called Bob. And I'll tell you that something

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Speaker 1: gonna geortre. He out run most all the four legged dogs. Well,

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Speaker 1: I never knew anything. You can imagine if he had

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Speaker 1: four legs, he probably wouldn't win Worth Nickel. You know.

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Speaker 1: My name is Clay Nukelem and this is the Bear

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Speaker 1: Grease Podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search

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Speaker 1: for insight and unlikely places, and where we'll tell the

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Speaker 1: story of Americans who lived their lives close to the land.

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Speaker 1: Presented by f HF Gear American Maid, purpose built hunting

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Speaker 1: and fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as

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Speaker 1: the places we explore. And one day I was down

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Speaker 1: in the field. Papa had me chopping some weeds out

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Speaker 1: of some young corn. Roality was with me. He was

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Speaker 1: always with me, and I had the old book with me,

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Speaker 1: and I'd read him page your two out of it

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Speaker 1: two or three times that day. I guess I don't

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Speaker 1: know where the thought came from or the idea, but

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Speaker 1: I do know that a million times in my life

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Speaker 1: I wish you hadn't to come around. But I thought, well,

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Speaker 1: wouldn't it be wonderful if I could write a story

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Speaker 1: like Call of the Wild. I don't know where this

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Speaker 1: came from. Talked to a lot of writers, but the

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Speaker 1: more I thought about this, uh more it got into

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Speaker 1: my mind. And I first talked over with Rowdy. I

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Speaker 1: didn't have anyone else talked to. I asked him what

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Speaker 1: if he thought I could write a story like that?

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Speaker 1: And I think he understood a little bit of what

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Speaker 1: I said. I know he did. Wagy's tail. That was

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Speaker 1: the voice of Woodrow Wilson rawls, and I want to

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Speaker 1: tell you an incredible story he's involved in. It's complex

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Speaker 1: because our story over the next two episodes will weave

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Speaker 1: in and out between real life and fiction, past and present,

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Speaker 1: life and death as it swim in and out of

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Speaker 1: the storylines of a book a major motion picture in

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Speaker 1: people's lives, like a winding Ozark road going from holler

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Speaker 1: to hilltop. Our story as multiple characters, layers, and objectives. First,

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Speaker 1: I want us to understand an obscure pastime of rural

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Speaker 1: America hunting raccoons with hounds, known far and wide as

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Speaker 1: coon hunting. The sheer mention of it evokes warm, nostalgic

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Speaker 1: responses in many and often people can't even explain why

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Speaker 1: the story of coon hunting is deeply personal to me,

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Speaker 1: but it's something far from gone. Coon hunting is alive

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Speaker 1: and well in the rural United States. Secondly, I want

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Speaker 1: to explore how a story about this niche pastime found

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Speaker 1: its way into the halls of American literary classics. This

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Speaker 1: book about coon Hunting Where the Red Fern Grows. I'm

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Speaker 1: sure you've heard of it. It's been a signed reading

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Speaker 1: in America schools from Los Angeles to New York City

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Speaker 1: and everywhere in between since the late nineteen sixties. I'm

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Speaker 1: very interested in places where historical hunting traditions overflow into

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Speaker 1: unlikely mainstream places like schools, works of literature, and Hollywood movies.

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Speaker 1: The book has been made into two movies, the original

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Speaker 1: and nineteen seventy four starring Stuart Peterson, and the other

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Speaker 1: in two thousand three starring Dave Matthews. Yep, the Singer.

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Speaker 1: It's pretty rare that our story, the Hunter's story, is

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Speaker 1: told in such pristine tones that it creates widespread and

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Speaker 1: undeniable affection for the hunter and the hunt. I think

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Speaker 1: there is something unusual going on here, and I want

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Speaker 1: to trail it up as we tell this big story.

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Speaker 1: It will require an understanding of the storyline of the

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Speaker 1: book if you're not familiar with it, but I bet

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Speaker 1: you are. Our curator will be Professor Seawan to Ton

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Speaker 1: of the University of Arkansas. He's a professor of English

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Speaker 1: interested in the literature of the Ozarks and on a

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Speaker 1: larger scale, Native American literature, which, as it turns out,

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Speaker 1: Wilson Rawls was a member of the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma.

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Speaker 1: Here's Professor to Ton giving us the general outline of

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Speaker 1: where the Red Firm grows. Hopefully it doesn't make you cry.

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Speaker 1: This is a story of a boy in the Ozarks

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Speaker 1: who wants desperately to become a coon hunter, and he

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Speaker 1: pleads with his parents day and night in tears to

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Speaker 1: get some dogs they live. They are very poor. They

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Speaker 1: live in a little cabin on a piece of land,

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Speaker 1: and the father works very hard, barely eke out a

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Speaker 1: living for them. There is no school anywhere, and the boy, Billy,

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Speaker 1: and his three little sisters are schooled at home by

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Speaker 1: their mother, whom they call Mama. Their only connection really

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Speaker 1: with the outside world is a general store down the

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Speaker 1: road run and owned by Grandpa, their grandfather, who is

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Speaker 1: a source of wisdom and advice. So finally the boy

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Speaker 1: just save enough money on his own secretly, and Billy

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Speaker 1: gets fifty dollars, which would be a lot of money

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Speaker 1: in and with fifty dollars, he secretly makes a deal

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Speaker 1: with his grandpa to purchase two red bone hounds, and

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Speaker 1: he waits weeks and weeks to hear about when they

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Speaker 1: would arrived there, coming from Kentucky, And then finally he

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Speaker 1: hears that the hounds are ready to be picked up,

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Speaker 1: and he secretly leaves the house the middle of the

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Speaker 1: night and walks thirty two miles to the southwest to Talaqua,

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Speaker 1: and there he gets the deepot and finally holds those

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Speaker 1: puppies in his arms, and he's in tears. So he

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Speaker 1: trains these these dogs in a year or so and

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Speaker 1: they are fully able to hunt coons. In the novel,

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Speaker 1: there are two big moments of the hunt, and one

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Speaker 1: of which is when he gets challenged on a bed

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Speaker 1: to get what is called the ghost coon. And the

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Speaker 1: Pritchard brothers, Ruben and Rainey are not nice boys. They're

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Speaker 1: dishonest and they they they challenge Billy, and the Grandpa's

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Speaker 1: so offended he tells Billy to accept the challenge against

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Speaker 1: his better wishes. And that is on that terrible momentum

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Speaker 1: when they finally go to get the ghost coon, Billy

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Speaker 1: discus overs and the dogs discover the secret to the

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Speaker 1: ghost Coon's trick. He jumps off a tree branch and

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Speaker 1: dumps it drives into a hollow post on a fence.

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Speaker 1: So Rascal Ghost, so Old Dan and Little Anne. The

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Speaker 1: dogs finally tree the ghost coon and who comes run

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Speaker 1: or not but the Pritchard's bluetick hound. That's when the

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Speaker 1: dogs getting a big fight and Reuben says, I'm gonna

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Speaker 1: kill those dogs, and he grabs the axe and runs

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Speaker 1: with it. And this is the moment we all remember

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Speaker 1: is when Ruben falls on the axe and it it

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Speaker 1: lodges in his stomach and he dies right there on

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Speaker 1: the in the ground and two young readers. That's a

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Speaker 1: very desperate, sad moment. And it's complicated because there's nothing

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Speaker 1: redeemable about the behavior of Reuben Rainey, and yet we

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Speaker 1: feel a moment of compassion for them because they two

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Speaker 1: are brothers. Um, it's a very sad moment. And it's

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Speaker 1: later on when Billy comes back and he leaves, he leaves,

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Speaker 1: leaves the hatchet in the tree and never takes it out.

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Speaker 1: He said, he doesn't win everyone hunt again after what

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Speaker 1: he saw and told his father, and his father tried

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Speaker 1: to go out there and make amends with the very

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Speaker 1: ranged family, the Pritchard's, and uh, he said, oh, we're

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Speaker 1: very very sad. In the novel, every novel functions on conflict.

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Speaker 1: There has to be some kind of conflict, whether between

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Speaker 1: people or or the land. Humans and the land. This

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Speaker 1: novel has both of those conflicts, which makes it feel powerful.

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Speaker 1: So the very sad moment a lesson about honesty, you know,

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Speaker 1: fairness and uh and loyalty all that to play in

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Speaker 1: that moment. And and the notion of mortality and death,

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Speaker 1: which foreshadows the eventual death of the hounds at the

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Speaker 1: end of the novel, and of course, later on, Grandpa

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Speaker 1: has saved money and use some of the money from

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Speaker 1: Billy's wages from selling the first to participate in a

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Speaker 1: competition with people from all over the country. The different

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Speaker 1: states are driving up for this coon hunting competition, and

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Speaker 1: he's now of local renown. He's he knows he gets

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Speaker 1: more skins than any but any other boy or man

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Speaker 1: for that matter. And then the three generations, Grandpa Papa

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Speaker 1: who wasn't gonna go because he was still busy, and Billy,

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Speaker 1: I'll get in the wagon and hand head up there,

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Speaker 1: which is probably about twenty miles away, but a world

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Speaker 1: away for for some. So that's an exciting moment for

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Speaker 1: any boy and a boy reader. Three generations. You got

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Speaker 1: your grandpa with it, your dad who's too busy to

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Speaker 1: do anything, and here you are and your dogs. So

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Speaker 1: they have the great competition in the competition. What happens

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Speaker 1: is and gets wins a trophy for the being the

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Speaker 1: prettiest dog, right, because that's what she's known for. It's

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Speaker 1: not exactly aggressive, but she's smart and beautiful. Right. And

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Speaker 1: then Dan is just ferocious and indomitable, you know. In

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Speaker 1: the hunt by them, they finally treat those four coons

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Speaker 1: to win the trophy. There's an ice storm, Grandpa's broken

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Speaker 1: an ankle, and the dogs are like and it's not

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Speaker 1: supposed to be humorous, but it almost is. The dogs

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Speaker 1: are so frozen with ice they look like ghosts. And

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Speaker 1: they build a fire. They're always able to do that, right.

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Speaker 1: It's as exciting as a reader when you're a boy,

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Speaker 1: that Billy can build a fire at any time he

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Speaker 1: falls in the icy river, he builds a fire and

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Speaker 1: he can do that. He's that competent in the woods.

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Speaker 1: And so they win the two trophies and they head

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Speaker 1: for home. And then after that, after that moment, we

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Speaker 1: we have this terrible event of the hell cat or

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Speaker 1: the cougar that the dog's tree and devil cat, the

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Speaker 1: devil cat, devil cat of the Ozarks. And the only

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Speaker 1: way to redeem that story is that the dogs say

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Speaker 1: Billy's life, the devil cat was going to pounce on him, right,

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Speaker 1: So that's not really is about about love at the

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Speaker 1: heart of all of this, and it's the love between

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Speaker 1: the two dogs, Dan and Ann. And so when Dan

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Speaker 1: is torn up by the cougar, and thence he dies

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Speaker 1: on the porch and the mother, again, the gracious mother,

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Speaker 1: She tries to put his entrails back in his body

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Speaker 1: and sew him up, and she watches them all off

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Speaker 1: and everything really understanding that kind of country life. It's

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Speaker 1: kind of a world away from me. And so's O's

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Speaker 1: up Dan and he lies in the porch and he

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Speaker 1: does die, he lost too much blood. And then it

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Speaker 1: gets the sadder moment though, is when Anne dies at

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Speaker 1: a broken heart, you know, as a kid. I mean

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Speaker 1: you're reading this part and and there's not a dry

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Speaker 1: eye out there in the readership. I mean, it's a

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Speaker 1: real moment when a boy or a girl has to

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Speaker 1: confront mortality, you know, in death itself, and and and

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Speaker 1: it's a tender moment because Billy doesn't understand it. He

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Speaker 1: tried to talk to his father about it, and his

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Speaker 1: father consoles him by telling him that there's a reason

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Speaker 1: for everything. There's design in the universe and purpose. And

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Speaker 1: the original plan was Billy was going to stay behind

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Speaker 1: and work with Grandpa at the store. And now because

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Speaker 1: the dogs died and he would know long are be

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Speaker 1: coon hunting, he could accompanied the family when they went west.

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Speaker 1: This is what Billy asked, Is there a heaven where

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Speaker 1: even dogs can go to hunt as they wish day

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Speaker 1: and night? And he said, yes, that's where they're going

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Speaker 1: to go. So when they're buried up on the hilltop

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Speaker 1: side by side, a red fern grows between them. And

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Speaker 1: there's a legend in the novel. They say it's an

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Speaker 1: old Indian legend. At one time a boy, sister and

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Speaker 1: a brother were walking and a blizzard and they both

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Speaker 1: froze to death. And there's a chance that could be

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Speaker 1: a reference to the Trail of Tears, because a lot

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Speaker 1: of Cherokee people did freeze to death when they walked

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Speaker 1: that nine fifty miles from the east into Oklahoma. And

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Speaker 1: there's at least a quarter of all Cherokees died in

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Speaker 1: that terrible trek. And so if it's a reference to

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Speaker 1: a little boy and little girl, maybe maybe Cherokees it's

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Speaker 1: a way to to redeem their lives and make make

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Speaker 1: it so that their lives meant something and they have purpose.

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Speaker 1: Because now when the red fern grows, it's only, as

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Speaker 1: they say, planted by an angel, and it's a it's

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Speaker 1: a it's a fern that never dies, so it's sacred.

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Speaker 1: So in that moment, and this is a big theme

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Speaker 1: in American literature is whether you're Native American or European American,

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Speaker 1: you sanctify the land, and the land becomes sacred because

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Speaker 1: something happened on either someone died and they're putting the ground,

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Speaker 1: you know, or many people died, like Gettysburg. That's how

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Speaker 1: we hollow ground. That's hollow ground and you can't build

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Speaker 1: on it, for example. So in that moment when the

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Speaker 1: when Danna are put in the ground, finally, you know,

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Speaker 1: Billy has a place there and in the burial a

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Speaker 1: lasting place forever. And in the burial itself, the author says,

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Speaker 1: or in the narrator, that he buried his childhood there.

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Speaker 1: He put it in the ground, and now he's now

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Speaker 1: a man. He hands the box of the winnings to

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Speaker 1: his father without question. Right, And I underlined that novel saying,

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Speaker 1: this is the moment he's become a man. Right, it's

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Speaker 1: no longer about me, it's from my family. And it's

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Speaker 1: a really touching moment. And then when they're in the

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Speaker 1: wagon and there's the fern up on the hillside and

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Speaker 1: Dan and are in the ground, and he says, I

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Speaker 1: left that land the ozarks, and I never riched earned.

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Speaker 1: In other words, he left his childhood. You're good, he's

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Speaker 1: become a man. Now. To broaden our understanding, we need

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Speaker 1: to take a step back. This book is autobiographical, meaning

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Speaker 1: it's based on the life of the author, which makes

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Speaker 1: it really interesting because we're about to learn some stuff

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Speaker 1: about old Mr Wilson Rawls that will make us scratch

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Speaker 1: our heads. Let's talk about the beloved, peculiar and unlikely author.

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Speaker 1: Here's professor to Tom who was Wilson Rawls? What do

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Speaker 1: you know about Wilson Rawls. Wilson Rawls was a writer

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Speaker 1: and a writer unbelievably successful if you consider the fact

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Speaker 1: that at present to date, his most famous novel, Where

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Speaker 1: the Red Fern Grows, sold six million, seven hundred fifty

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Speaker 1: four eight cops with two movies attempting to portray the novel.

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Speaker 1: So in terms of books like American literature books in

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Speaker 1: this category with be I mean that sounds like a

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Speaker 1: lot to me. Six million copies? Is that super successful?

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Speaker 1: That that is very successful? And it's still being printed today,

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Speaker 1: still printed today. If you walk into any Barnes and

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Speaker 1: noble that you go to the rack, he'll be on

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Speaker 1: the rack with great novels like like The Yearly or

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Speaker 1: Charlotte's Webb. Charlotte's Webb. Yeah, it's it's still a very

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Speaker 1: much read novel. It's a very teachable novel um, but

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Speaker 1: it's certainly of deep scholarly interest. So when when was

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Speaker 1: he alive? See he was born in nineteen thirteen and

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Speaker 1: died in four and the novel Where the Red Fern

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Speaker 1: Grows was published in nineteen sixty one, So you think

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Speaker 1: about it, he didn't really get get to that novel

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Speaker 1: until later in his life. And in the meantime, what

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Speaker 1: did he do well? If this novel is considered to

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Speaker 1: be autobiographical, he probably left Oklahoma or the ozark as

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Speaker 1: he prefers to call them, around almost maybe fourteen years old,

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Speaker 1: right in ninety seven, I would say, So that's just

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Speaker 1: around the before the Great Depression. As you know in

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Speaker 1: the novel. If we're thinking autobiographically, his family is very

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Speaker 1: poor and they leave in a wagon. Seems earlier than

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Speaker 1: it is because they're so poor they can't afford and

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Speaker 1: that would have been very consistent with people living in

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Speaker 1: this part of the world. And his family was headed

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Speaker 1: for California, you know, like another famous novel that takes

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Speaker 1: off from Sala, Saw the Grapes of Wrath. Right, they're

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Speaker 1: headed for California. The car breaks down in New Mexico.

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Speaker 1: I believe Albuquerque and the family never leaves that having

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Speaker 1: the Grapes of Wrath. No, no, in, Wilson rawls his life.

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Speaker 1: He's not get the two confused? Yeah, is it true

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Speaker 1: he never came back to the Ozarks. Well, I think

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Speaker 1: he made it back to Oklahoma because we know that

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Speaker 1: he served to prison sentences in Oklahoma. No way, Wilson rawls, Yes,

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Speaker 1: this crushing my dreams. Why did he go to prison?

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Speaker 1: I don't know. But the third time he went to prison,

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Speaker 1: it was in New Mexico. Are you being this is

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Speaker 1: not a joke about being punked? It's unbelievable with me, really,

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Speaker 1: and then you know he shocker man. He eventually he

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Speaker 1: got jobs. He worked for the Atomic Energy Commission, now

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Speaker 1: just in construction, but I think it might have been

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Speaker 1: a higher level position. There's something in my mind as

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Speaker 1: a scholar's kind of turning right now working for the

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Speaker 1: Atomic Energy Commission, living in a cabin on a lake

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Speaker 1: in Idaho Falls. That's where he ends up, and that's

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Speaker 1: when he gets first gets married, and then he begins

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Speaker 1: to write write the novel. So after he had been

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Speaker 1: to prison. Yes, Wilson Rawls went to prison three times.

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Speaker 1: The character and morals portraying the book make this a

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Speaker 1: shocking discovery. When I went to research his criminal background,

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Speaker 1: I was thrown off by how hard the information was

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Speaker 1: to locate. After talking more with Professor Tutan, I had

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Speaker 1: to confirm the truth of this for myself because of

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Speaker 1: the things written about Wilson Rawls say nothing about it.

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Speaker 1: There is one tiny blurb on the Internet on Wikipedia

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Speaker 1: that talks about it. That's it. Considering he was a

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Speaker 1: children's author pre Internet, when it was easy to hide stuff,

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Speaker 1: it would have been pretty easy to hide it and

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Speaker 1: clearly wasn't something publishers or he wanted to highlight, which

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Speaker 1: you can't blame him for that, but I had to

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Speaker 1: confirm this for myself. He taught me a Christian. Hello,

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Speaker 1: my name's Clay. I am trying to find out if

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Speaker 1: someone has been in prison in Oklahoma. Could you help

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00:18:20,200 --> 00:18:23,320
Speaker 1: me find out some information. I can get you over

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Speaker 1: to record and then they can move him up for

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00:18:25,400 --> 00:18:33,840
Speaker 1: you okay, great, that'd be great. One Sean is not

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00:18:33,920 --> 00:18:37,320
Speaker 1: available to take your call. Please leave a message after

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Speaker 1: the town Preston town Kea. Hey Sean, my name is

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Speaker 1: Clay and I'm trying to get some information on a

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Speaker 1: man named Woodrow Wilson Rawls. He was born septem n

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Speaker 1: and it's alleged that he served some prison time in

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Speaker 1: Oklahoma and I'm just trying to confirm if that's true.

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Speaker 1: He's to see east. If you could help me track

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Speaker 1: that down, really appreciate it, Thank you very much. I

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Speaker 1: was a bit nervous while I waited for the confirmation

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Speaker 1: of Mr Wilson's criminal record, not because it really mattered,

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Speaker 1: but all the social cues screamed that it couldn't be true.

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Speaker 1: But it was. Here is the information that I found.

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Speaker 1: When he was twenty years old in nineteen thirty three,

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Speaker 1: he served eighteen months in the Oklahoma State Penitentiary for

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Speaker 1: larceny of domestic fouls. That means he stole some chickens

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Speaker 1: and went to prison. Man, that's a tough judge. I

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00:19:40,400 --> 00:19:44,080
Speaker 1: guess his second term in Oklahoma. We couldn't figure out

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Speaker 1: what it was for, but I was able to find

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Speaker 1: that On March twenty second, nineteen forty, at the age

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Speaker 1: of twenty seven, he pleaded guilty to breaking and entering

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Speaker 1: and burglary in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He was sentenced to

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Speaker 1: two to three years in the New Mexico co State Penitentiary.

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Speaker 1: The prison records say that he was five ft ten

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Speaker 1: and a quarter, he weighed a hundred and forty eight pounds,

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00:20:08,040 --> 00:20:10,600
Speaker 1: had a vaccination scar on his left arm, and was

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Speaker 1: a smoker. Wilson Woody Rawls, that's what they called him,

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00:20:15,640 --> 00:20:18,919
Speaker 1: was an unlikely bestselling author, and his personal story is

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00:20:18,960 --> 00:20:23,240
Speaker 1: wildly intriguing and redemptive. He was one of six children

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Speaker 1: born in the community of Scrapper in Cherokee County, Oklahoma,

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Speaker 1: a fitting birthplace. He was educated by his mother, who

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Speaker 1: was part Cherokee Indian, and as he recounted, when a

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00:20:33,480 --> 00:20:36,480
Speaker 1: school was finally opened, he had to wade across a

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Speaker 1: river to get there, the Illinois River, which is in

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Speaker 1: the book and movie. He was often tethered while crossing

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Speaker 1: the river with a lariat rope around his waist so

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Speaker 1: he wouldn't wash downstream. He went to school during the

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Speaker 1: summer and only went for four years. As a young boy,

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Speaker 1: he read the book Call of the Wild, which inspired

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Speaker 1: him to want to be a writer. It was also

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Speaker 1: during that time that he coon hunted with his blue tickhound, Rowdy.

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00:21:03,040 --> 00:21:05,879
Speaker 1: Mr Wilson and his family left the Ozarks of Oklahoma

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Speaker 1: when he was in his early twenties. He would end

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Speaker 1: up living in New Mexico, finally settled down in Idaho

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Speaker 1: for a lot of his adult life, but he died

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Speaker 1: in Wisconsin in nineteen eighty four. He primarily worked in

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Speaker 1: construction his whole life. Wherever he went. Throughout his young adulthood,

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Speaker 1: he would write multiple book manuscripts by hand, as many

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00:21:26,080 --> 00:21:29,440
Speaker 1: as six, they say, and some of it on paper sacks.

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00:21:29,960 --> 00:21:32,399
Speaker 1: He would later say the spelling was horrible and that

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00:21:32,480 --> 00:21:36,199
Speaker 1: the handwriting included no punctuation. He kept the writing secret

390
00:21:36,280 --> 00:21:39,960
Speaker 1: and was seemingly ashamed of his moonlighting passion before he

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00:21:40,000 --> 00:21:42,360
Speaker 1: got married at the age of forty five and nineteen

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Speaker 1: fifty eight, it's believed that he burned many of his

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Speaker 1: manuscripts yep let him on fire. It was only after

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Speaker 1: he got married to his wife, Sophie, that he confessed

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Speaker 1: his writing habits, and she encouraged him to write. It

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00:21:56,640 --> 00:22:00,119
Speaker 1: is believed that Rawls quit his job, and in three

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Speaker 1: weeks he rewrote the entire thirty five thousand word book,

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Speaker 1: Where the Red Fern Grows From memory. This would have

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00:22:07,880 --> 00:22:11,760
Speaker 1: most likely been in nineteen fifty nine. Sophie helped him

400
00:22:11,880 --> 00:22:15,640
Speaker 1: edit the manuscript and submitted to a publisher. Mr Wilson's

401
00:22:15,640 --> 00:22:18,440
Speaker 1: story was originally published as a three part series of

402
00:22:18,520 --> 00:22:22,520
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty one in the Saturday Evening Post under the

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Speaker 1: name The Hounds of Youth. From this initial exposure, a

404
00:22:26,280 --> 00:22:29,120
Speaker 1: publishing company picked up the book and published it under

405
00:22:29,160 --> 00:22:32,399
Speaker 1: the name Where the Red Fern Grows without Mr Wilson's input,

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Speaker 1: and it said that it broke his heart because he

407
00:22:35,040 --> 00:22:38,040
Speaker 1: didn't think it would reach the children as effectively with

408
00:22:38,160 --> 00:22:41,600
Speaker 1: that name. And this is what's wild. The book was

409
00:22:41,760 --> 00:22:46,639
Speaker 1: not an immediate success. It wasn't until nineteen sixty seven,

410
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Speaker 1: six years after the book was published and decades after

411
00:22:50,880 --> 00:22:54,560
Speaker 1: he originally wrote the first manuscript, that he got his

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00:22:54,720 --> 00:22:58,159
Speaker 1: first break. Mr. Wilson was invited to speak at a

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Speaker 1: children's book conference, a place that ex cons usually aren't invited.

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00:23:03,160 --> 00:23:06,720
Speaker 1: This was in Utah, and this would ignite a flame

415
00:23:06,960 --> 00:23:10,080
Speaker 1: and open people's eyes to the mastery of his narrative.

416
00:23:10,880 --> 00:23:14,240
Speaker 1: Mr Wilson was in his mid fifties, a construction worker

417
00:23:14,520 --> 00:23:17,600
Speaker 1: and had never spoken in public before, and he almost

418
00:23:17,680 --> 00:23:22,040
Speaker 1: didn't even go. After this conference, orders poured in for

419
00:23:22,160 --> 00:23:26,160
Speaker 1: the book, and its hype spread like wildfire, and he

420
00:23:26,240 --> 00:23:29,720
Speaker 1: would spend the final twenty years of his life before

421
00:23:29,720 --> 00:23:34,520
Speaker 1: his passing the night traveling to over two thousand schools

422
00:23:34,560 --> 00:23:38,720
Speaker 1: making inspirational speeches to children, encouraging them to read and

423
00:23:38,840 --> 00:23:43,840
Speaker 1: explore writing. An ex convict turned best selling author turned

424
00:23:43,920 --> 00:23:49,400
Speaker 1: children's motivational speaker is an unlikely but redemptive path. It's

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00:23:49,400 --> 00:23:52,080
Speaker 1: easy for me to believe that he wouldn't be too

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00:23:52,119 --> 00:23:54,879
Speaker 1: quick to talk about his past, which seems like he

427
00:23:54,960 --> 00:23:59,840
Speaker 1: never did. Maybe his fictional story was his way to

428
00:24:00,200 --> 00:24:08,000
Speaker 1: right the wrongs of his youth. It's pure speculation. Here's

429
00:24:08,040 --> 00:24:11,280
Speaker 1: a clip from the Disney movie Where the Red Fern Grows.

430
00:24:11,800 --> 00:24:15,200
Speaker 1: You're going to hear the young voice of a man

431
00:24:15,640 --> 00:24:19,080
Speaker 1: that we're about to meet. Well, Billy, you better get gone.

432
00:24:19,119 --> 00:24:27,199
Speaker 1: They'll be stirring soon. Good. So I'll be looking for

433
00:24:27,200 --> 00:24:29,360
Speaker 1: a bit coonskin on the smoke house wall in the morning.

434
00:24:30,800 --> 00:24:33,440
Speaker 1: Maybe seeing the party, I can find cap bro Hunter.

435
00:24:41,520 --> 00:24:46,720
Speaker 1: All right, touch everything and all. Now we'll go see

436
00:24:46,760 --> 00:24:50,520
Speaker 1: if you're Coon dogs rich You're not. I was. I'm

437
00:24:50,560 --> 00:24:52,360
Speaker 1: asking it. It's for you to true Coon and I'll

438
00:24:52,400 --> 00:25:03,920
Speaker 1: do the rest. Okay. I told you at the beginning

439
00:25:03,960 --> 00:25:07,119
Speaker 1: of this about a man named Stewart Peterson who played

440
00:25:07,160 --> 00:25:11,720
Speaker 1: the protagonist Billy Coleman in the original nineteen seventy four

441
00:25:11,840 --> 00:25:14,680
Speaker 1: movie Where the Red Fern Grows, which is by far

442
00:25:15,080 --> 00:25:17,359
Speaker 1: the best movie. I love it, you gotta watch it.

443
00:25:18,359 --> 00:25:22,400
Speaker 1: I was able to go to Wyoming and meet Mr Steward,

444
00:25:22,920 --> 00:25:26,760
Speaker 1: now in his early sixties and hear the story firsthand

445
00:25:26,800 --> 00:25:29,880
Speaker 1: from him because he met Wilson Rawls. He actually met

446
00:25:29,960 --> 00:25:34,560
Speaker 1: him in Tallquah, Oklahoma, in the fall of nineteen seventy three,

447
00:25:34,840 --> 00:25:37,919
Speaker 1: on the movie set of Where the Red Fern Grows.

448
00:25:38,440 --> 00:25:42,800
Speaker 1: Here's Mr Stewart. So while you were down there, you

449
00:25:42,840 --> 00:25:45,520
Speaker 1: had the opportunity to meet Wilson Rawls. He came down

450
00:25:45,560 --> 00:25:48,360
Speaker 1: on the set and was there for but I think

451
00:25:48,359 --> 00:25:50,439
Speaker 1: he was probably there a week. And so what was

452
00:25:50,480 --> 00:25:52,359
Speaker 1: he doing there? Was he he came down to just

453
00:25:52,440 --> 00:25:54,639
Speaker 1: observe and to see how things were going and what

454
00:25:54,720 --> 00:25:57,040
Speaker 1: things looked like. We see an old man then yeah,

455
00:25:57,040 --> 00:25:59,760
Speaker 1: he would have been uh, you know, of course, at thirteen,

456
00:26:00,240 --> 00:26:03,360
Speaker 1: when people are over sixty five, everybody's old. I think

457
00:26:03,359 --> 00:26:05,560
Speaker 1: he would have probably been in his uh, he would

458
00:26:05,560 --> 00:26:08,080
Speaker 1: have been probably in his late sixties, already seventies at

459
00:26:08,119 --> 00:26:10,840
Speaker 1: that point. Here, you know, I was thirteen, and uh,

460
00:26:11,080 --> 00:26:15,720
Speaker 1: but I just I felt a real friendship kinship to

461
00:26:15,840 --> 00:26:18,119
Speaker 1: Wilson Rawls right off the bat. He was just that

462
00:26:18,280 --> 00:26:20,919
Speaker 1: kind of a guy that he liked things that I

463
00:26:21,040 --> 00:26:23,399
Speaker 1: liked to do. Was when he talked and told me.

464
00:26:23,440 --> 00:26:25,880
Speaker 1: I was fascinated by some of his stories, his real

465
00:26:25,880 --> 00:26:28,959
Speaker 1: life stories. He spent some time with me, Yeah, I was.

466
00:26:29,160 --> 00:26:32,199
Speaker 1: I wanted to be hearing him because he was He

467
00:26:32,280 --> 00:26:33,800
Speaker 1: had a way with words to tell us what was

468
00:26:33,800 --> 00:26:36,520
Speaker 1: he what was he like? He was just just just

469
00:26:36,560 --> 00:26:39,720
Speaker 1: a Southern gant just kind just seemed to have a

470
00:26:39,800 --> 00:26:43,440
Speaker 1: kind personality to me. But his his interests just were

471
00:26:43,920 --> 00:26:45,800
Speaker 1: right kind of down my line. He wanted to be

472
00:26:45,840 --> 00:26:49,159
Speaker 1: outdoors all the time. But did you know that he's

473
00:26:49,200 --> 00:26:54,320
Speaker 1: been to prison. I didn't know. You've never heard that before, Listen,

474
00:26:55,000 --> 00:26:58,160
Speaker 1: Wilson Rawls served three terms in prison. Wow, I didn't

475
00:26:58,160 --> 00:27:01,280
Speaker 1: know that. Yeah, I was. It was when he was younger.

476
00:27:01,840 --> 00:27:05,280
Speaker 1: I sensed that when I met him at my stage

477
00:27:05,280 --> 00:27:08,119
Speaker 1: of life and his stage of life. He was past

478
00:27:08,200 --> 00:27:10,600
Speaker 1: that to the to the extent that he was trying

479
00:27:10,640 --> 00:27:15,280
Speaker 1: to make correction, uh, for the things that Maybe that's

480
00:27:15,320 --> 00:27:19,840
Speaker 1: what's so interesting is it's autobiographical. But when you're when

481
00:27:19,840 --> 00:27:23,160
Speaker 1: you're a fiction writer, you can go back and make

482
00:27:23,600 --> 00:27:26,119
Speaker 1: this story that's kind of about you, kind of the

483
00:27:26,160 --> 00:27:29,760
Speaker 1: way you want it to be. Yeah, And so maybe

484
00:27:30,000 --> 00:27:32,919
Speaker 1: he was going back in and kind of fixing his

485
00:27:33,040 --> 00:27:35,040
Speaker 1: childhood because I had never thought about that way. But

486
00:27:35,080 --> 00:27:37,480
Speaker 1: a story, you know, it was just chucked so so

487
00:27:37,560 --> 00:27:42,040
Speaker 1: full of character and Billy wrestling with God about stuff

488
00:27:42,160 --> 00:27:46,040
Speaker 1: and all these little moral things going on, and then

489
00:27:46,080 --> 00:27:49,520
Speaker 1: the boy dies, and you know, I just assumed Wilson

490
00:27:49,600 --> 00:27:53,959
Speaker 1: Rawls was just just like lifelong, upstanding guy, and I was.

491
00:27:54,080 --> 00:27:56,800
Speaker 1: I was kind of surprised, when I would have to

492
00:27:56,800 --> 00:27:59,560
Speaker 1: say say the same. I was surprised based on the

493
00:27:59,560 --> 00:28:01,800
Speaker 1: fact that when I met him, I was I was

494
00:28:01,960 --> 00:28:05,240
Speaker 1: immediately drawn to him just because there was a genuineness

495
00:28:05,359 --> 00:28:07,840
Speaker 1: and kindness in his eyes that I never I wouldn't

496
00:28:07,840 --> 00:28:10,720
Speaker 1: have ever expected. You know. Of course, I believe there's

497
00:28:10,760 --> 00:28:13,359
Speaker 1: people in jail that can fully with the look in

498
00:28:13,400 --> 00:28:15,919
Speaker 1: their eyes, but for the most part. It's just like

499
00:28:16,000 --> 00:28:18,439
Speaker 1: for me, looking into horses eyes, I can kind of

500
00:28:18,480 --> 00:28:21,880
Speaker 1: have an idea of their disposition and their character from

501
00:28:22,040 --> 00:28:26,280
Speaker 1: how they may be. I refer and Dad kind of

502
00:28:26,320 --> 00:28:28,280
Speaker 1: My dad always kind of alluded to this as I

503
00:28:28,359 --> 00:28:31,199
Speaker 1: was growing up with him around horses and as if

504
00:28:31,240 --> 00:28:32,880
Speaker 1: you look in their eyes you can see a lot

505
00:28:32,920 --> 00:28:37,280
Speaker 1: of what they may be in the future. Um. But

506
00:28:37,280 --> 00:28:39,760
Speaker 1: but I also recognize that there are those horses that

507
00:28:40,520 --> 00:28:43,440
Speaker 1: have had a wild eyed look and down the road

508
00:28:43,680 --> 00:28:48,840
Speaker 1: have changed and people can do the same. Mr Wilson

509
00:28:48,880 --> 00:28:51,880
Speaker 1: has been gone for almost forty years, but in one

510
00:28:51,920 --> 00:28:54,800
Speaker 1: of the few recordings of him, he gave a speech

511
00:28:54,840 --> 00:28:58,680
Speaker 1: called Dreams Can Come True and lucky for us, we

512
00:28:58,720 --> 00:29:01,840
Speaker 1: can listen to it and in some small way meet

513
00:29:02,080 --> 00:29:06,800
Speaker 1: Mr Wilson. Here's a short excerpt from that speech. I

514
00:29:06,840 --> 00:29:10,280
Speaker 1: think you'll pick up on what the young Stewart Peterson

515
00:29:10,400 --> 00:29:18,320
Speaker 1: did back on that movie set. Now, before I go

516
00:29:18,440 --> 00:29:21,760
Speaker 1: into this talk, there's a few things that I think

517
00:29:21,760 --> 00:29:27,400
Speaker 1: we better get straightened out. I'm not a professional speaker,

518
00:29:29,400 --> 00:29:31,120
Speaker 1: although there seem to be an awful lot of people

519
00:29:31,160 --> 00:29:36,680
Speaker 1: trying to make one out of me, But I don't

520
00:29:36,720 --> 00:29:39,280
Speaker 1: think I could be a professional speaker, even if I

521
00:29:39,360 --> 00:29:43,960
Speaker 1: wanted to, I'd have two strikes again me to begin

522
00:29:44,080 --> 00:29:53,960
Speaker 1: with one, my word vocabulary is practically zero, and I'm

523
00:29:54,000 --> 00:29:56,040
Speaker 1: going to make a statement now that I don't know

524
00:29:56,040 --> 00:29:58,600
Speaker 1: whether very many people would have nerve enough to make

525
00:29:58,680 --> 00:30:03,000
Speaker 1: at this kind of a setting, specially English teachers. You're

526
00:30:03,040 --> 00:30:05,560
Speaker 1: going to hear more grammar mistakes in one speech to

527
00:30:05,640 --> 00:30:09,840
Speaker 1: day then you will hear the rest of your life.

528
00:30:11,160 --> 00:30:14,800
Speaker 1: I don't think this is altogether my fault. My mother

529
00:30:14,920 --> 00:30:18,600
Speaker 1: said that Osborne in the wrong place at the wrong time,

530
00:30:19,200 --> 00:30:22,479
Speaker 1: and I guess she's must have been right. Now you're

531
00:30:22,520 --> 00:30:24,720
Speaker 1: going to hear words to day and my talk that

532
00:30:25,400 --> 00:30:28,720
Speaker 1: some speakers may say they're not very appropriate words for

533
00:30:28,880 --> 00:30:32,160
Speaker 1: speaker to use, but I don't care what other speakers

534
00:30:32,200 --> 00:30:35,200
Speaker 1: has to say. They're the only kind of words that

535
00:30:35,320 --> 00:30:38,440
Speaker 1: I know, the words that I grew up with. There's

536
00:30:38,480 --> 00:30:43,280
Speaker 1: a boy words from the hills, the folklore word. You'll

537
00:30:43,280 --> 00:30:49,680
Speaker 1: hear words like mamma and papa, gran'ma and grandpa. These

538
00:30:49,680 --> 00:30:52,200
Speaker 1: are the words that I grew up with, and they're

539
00:30:52,240 --> 00:30:55,000
Speaker 1: the only ones that I know how to use. I

540
00:30:55,080 --> 00:30:57,960
Speaker 1: grew up in those hills on a little farm. This

541
00:30:58,120 --> 00:31:01,320
Speaker 1: farm has been deeded to my mother. She's part Cherokee.

542
00:31:01,680 --> 00:31:05,080
Speaker 1: Back in the latter eighteen hundreds, when the government chopped

543
00:31:05,120 --> 00:31:08,000
Speaker 1: up the Cherokee strip and deeded it out in allotments

544
00:31:08,040 --> 00:31:10,800
Speaker 1: to those who could lay claim to the Cherokee heritage,

545
00:31:11,120 --> 00:31:13,800
Speaker 1: my mother was part Cherokee. I even have an old

546
00:31:13,840 --> 00:31:16,959
Speaker 1: number myself. I was the only boy in the family

547
00:31:16,960 --> 00:31:19,800
Speaker 1: at that time, but I had a whole house full

548
00:31:19,840 --> 00:31:23,240
Speaker 1: of sisters, five of I never have thought that was fair,

549
00:31:23,320 --> 00:31:26,400
Speaker 1: but to wasn't anything I could do about it. And

550
00:31:27,040 --> 00:31:30,320
Speaker 1: like most country boys in those days, I didn't have

551
00:31:30,400 --> 00:31:34,200
Speaker 1: any boys to run around with or play with. Neighbors

552
00:31:34,200 --> 00:31:37,480
Speaker 1: were few and far between, and I was always alone.

553
00:31:37,960 --> 00:31:40,160
Speaker 1: But the only friend I had was an old dog.

554
00:31:40,760 --> 00:31:44,520
Speaker 1: And I couldn't play with my sisters. That was utterly impossible.

555
00:31:44,600 --> 00:31:48,000
Speaker 1: It couldn't do that. I was interested in the outdoors,

556
00:31:48,080 --> 00:31:51,040
Speaker 1: hunting and fishing, and I don't think I've ever had

557
00:31:51,080 --> 00:31:56,840
Speaker 1: all of it I wanted in my life. The folklore

558
00:31:57,080 --> 00:32:00,720
Speaker 1: word are the only words I know how to use,

559
00:32:00,800 --> 00:32:06,520
Speaker 1: he said, his distinct soothing ozark drawl are endearing and

560
00:32:06,640 --> 00:32:10,360
Speaker 1: familiar to my ear. The speech is over an hour long,

561
00:32:10,520 --> 00:32:13,640
Speaker 1: but I just wanted us to interface with his demeanor.

562
00:32:14,320 --> 00:32:17,760
Speaker 1: The place of authenticity from which Mr Wilson wrote this

563
00:32:17,840 --> 00:32:21,600
Speaker 1: book is what makes it special and unique. I still

564
00:32:21,680 --> 00:32:24,720
Speaker 1: think it's odd that he never publicly addressed his past life.

565
00:32:25,000 --> 00:32:26,440
Speaker 1: I would think it would have been a point of

566
00:32:26,480 --> 00:32:30,400
Speaker 1: celebration and overcoming. Who knows. You can listen to the

567
00:32:30,400 --> 00:32:34,480
Speaker 1: whole speech on a YouTube channel called Jim Trelease Wilson

568
00:32:34,560 --> 00:32:37,560
Speaker 1: Rawls Part one, two, three, four, and five. It's called

569
00:32:40,520 --> 00:32:43,320
Speaker 1: if you're familiar with the original nineteen seventy four movie,

570
00:32:43,400 --> 00:32:47,000
Speaker 1: you might have also recognized Wilson Rawl's voice because he

571
00:32:47,120 --> 00:32:50,200
Speaker 1: narrated parts of the movie. Nobody told me that, I

572
00:32:50,280 --> 00:32:54,680
Speaker 1: just recognized it immediately. Here's Professor Teuton given us some

573
00:32:54,840 --> 00:32:59,800
Speaker 1: insight into autobiographical scholarship and the Native American influence in

574
00:32:59,840 --> 00:33:03,640
Speaker 1: the book. Sometimes it's fun to consider someone's life as

575
00:33:03,640 --> 00:33:06,480
Speaker 1: a story or as its own work of fiction. And

576
00:33:06,520 --> 00:33:09,160
Speaker 1: if you think of Wilson Rawls as kind of has

577
00:33:09,240 --> 00:33:12,240
Speaker 1: this being the story of his his confession or his

578
00:33:12,560 --> 00:33:15,240
Speaker 1: being reformed. Right, He's gonna his gift to two young

579
00:33:15,280 --> 00:33:18,520
Speaker 1: men will be a novel about how to behave Yeah,

580
00:33:18,520 --> 00:33:23,160
Speaker 1: how to find an exactly so you know, don't don't

581
00:33:23,160 --> 00:33:27,120
Speaker 1: be like the Pritchard's. So how many other books did

582
00:33:27,200 --> 00:33:30,040
Speaker 1: Wilson Rawls? Right? One other? Uh, some of the Monkeys.

583
00:33:30,200 --> 00:33:32,320
Speaker 1: So he just wrote two books just too. He was

584
00:33:32,360 --> 00:33:35,520
Speaker 1: not a prolific author, it was. He was kind of

585
00:33:35,520 --> 00:33:38,680
Speaker 1: a one hit wonder I think. So. Yeah, But you know,

586
00:33:38,760 --> 00:33:41,760
Speaker 1: I should also mention that Wilson Rawls was was a Cherokee,

587
00:33:42,400 --> 00:33:45,239
Speaker 1: and it's very culturally interesting to see how important that

588
00:33:45,240 --> 00:33:47,960
Speaker 1: culture was to him as an author, and in the

589
00:33:48,000 --> 00:33:50,480
Speaker 1: way it plays out in a subtle manner in the novel.

590
00:33:50,600 --> 00:33:53,400
Speaker 1: So it's one of the first scenes in the original

591
00:33:53,440 --> 00:33:56,920
Speaker 1: movie from nineteen seventy four. He's he mentions, he says,

592
00:33:56,960 --> 00:33:59,120
Speaker 1: this land was given to my family because of the

593
00:33:59,200 --> 00:34:03,320
Speaker 1: Cherokee that ran in my mother's veins. Opening scene. It

594
00:34:03,600 --> 00:34:06,760
Speaker 1: sets it up and and from being from this part

595
00:34:06,800 --> 00:34:11,200
Speaker 1: of the world very much Native American the present still

596
00:34:11,239 --> 00:34:13,880
Speaker 1: in Oklahoma to this day. If you if you know

597
00:34:13,920 --> 00:34:16,160
Speaker 1: a little bit about the culture or the Cherokee history,

598
00:34:16,400 --> 00:34:19,040
Speaker 1: it becomes pretty clear that it's it's it plays a

599
00:34:19,160 --> 00:34:21,520
Speaker 1: role in that novel. I mean, he's you know, Willy's

600
00:34:21,520 --> 00:34:24,880
Speaker 1: referencing the the Allotment Act of eighteen eight seven you know,

601
00:34:25,000 --> 00:34:28,000
Speaker 1: on the one hand, those who were progressive, and sometimes

602
00:34:28,120 --> 00:34:30,600
Speaker 1: a tribe would be split on whether to allot the land.

603
00:34:30,719 --> 00:34:32,520
Speaker 1: Some believed it was it was a chance to finally

604
00:34:32,800 --> 00:34:36,640
Speaker 1: make Native Americans. Yeoman farmers learned the value of property

605
00:34:36,840 --> 00:34:39,160
Speaker 1: and prepared them for citizenship, which they did not formally

606
00:34:39,200 --> 00:34:42,759
Speaker 1: received until nine but they did under Allotment Act in

607
00:34:42,840 --> 00:34:44,840
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty seven. If you got your land allotted, you

608
00:34:44,880 --> 00:34:48,520
Speaker 1: did becoming. So the Native Americans on the reservations were

609
00:34:48,560 --> 00:34:51,440
Speaker 1: not US citizens until nineteen twenty four? Is that what

610
00:34:51,480 --> 00:34:54,440
Speaker 1: I heard you say? Officially? For some it was like,

611
00:34:54,480 --> 00:34:56,920
Speaker 1: for example, a Navjo nation was not allotted because the

612
00:34:57,000 --> 00:34:59,759
Speaker 1: land was not arible. So I believe the Navajos weren't

613
00:34:59,840 --> 00:35:03,680
Speaker 1: you as citizens until by birthright. Some say as a

614
00:35:03,760 --> 00:35:06,400
Speaker 1: reward for for serving in World War One. You know,

615
00:35:06,400 --> 00:35:09,200
Speaker 1: more Native Americans per capita serve in our war than

616
00:35:09,239 --> 00:35:12,000
Speaker 1: any other group. Wow. So that novel opens with theirs

617
00:35:12,000 --> 00:35:14,000
Speaker 1: in the background there that the land has been allotted,

618
00:35:14,160 --> 00:35:16,160
Speaker 1: and you know, the billy and his family have a

619
00:35:16,160 --> 00:35:18,719
Speaker 1: little piece of land. Um, and it kind of dramatizes

620
00:35:18,760 --> 00:35:21,040
Speaker 1: the trouble that Native Americans had. They get this piece

621
00:35:21,040 --> 00:35:23,759
Speaker 1: of land, and now suddenly it's taxed, it's entrust with

622
00:35:23,800 --> 00:35:26,959
Speaker 1: the federal government. So they do this because they didn't

623
00:35:26,960 --> 00:35:31,520
Speaker 1: believe Native Americans were competent. That was the term they

624
00:35:31,600 --> 00:35:34,799
Speaker 1: used to own or sell their land unless they had

625
00:35:35,280 --> 00:35:39,520
Speaker 1: a minimum of a quarter white blood. Wow. Yeah, So

626
00:35:39,600 --> 00:35:41,640
Speaker 1: they're living on this land and that's something the background,

627
00:35:41,680 --> 00:35:44,520
Speaker 1: you know, and the paw Paw and mom are trying

628
00:35:44,520 --> 00:35:47,200
Speaker 1: to scrape by, you know, and uh, if they don't

629
00:35:47,280 --> 00:35:49,879
Speaker 1: pay their taxes, they're gonna take their land. And that's

630
00:35:49,880 --> 00:35:52,360
Speaker 1: almost foreshadowed in the novel You're called when the Pritchard's

631
00:35:52,600 --> 00:35:54,520
Speaker 1: so you can't get the ghost coon and they lead

632
00:35:54,600 --> 00:35:56,279
Speaker 1: him up to this house and they say they used

633
00:35:56,320 --> 00:35:57,719
Speaker 1: to and it's kind of eerie. I don't know if

634
00:35:57,880 --> 00:35:59,320
Speaker 1: how do you feel about this? The lands kind of

635
00:35:59,360 --> 00:36:01,640
Speaker 1: haunted because there's no house, but you can see there's

636
00:36:01,680 --> 00:36:04,120
Speaker 1: these beautiful trees around something that might have been her

637
00:36:04,160 --> 00:36:06,319
Speaker 1: house at one time. And there's this fence with the

638
00:36:06,440 --> 00:36:09,920
Speaker 1: tall post where the ghost coon hides in the hollow post.

639
00:36:10,440 --> 00:36:12,759
Speaker 1: But that the purchase say some Indians used to live here,

640
00:36:13,640 --> 00:36:15,160
Speaker 1: and it's kind of haunted because you think, well, what

641
00:36:15,239 --> 00:36:17,239
Speaker 1: happened to them? Why did they leave their land, and

642
00:36:17,400 --> 00:36:20,160
Speaker 1: it could have been. There's so much in the book,

643
00:36:20,520 --> 00:36:23,600
Speaker 1: just little pieces like that that are so that do

644
00:36:23,800 --> 00:36:27,040
Speaker 1: such a great job of reflecting really what happened. It's

645
00:36:27,080 --> 00:36:29,720
Speaker 1: it's all over the book. Yeah, you can tell whoever

646
00:36:29,840 --> 00:36:31,719
Speaker 1: you know. If you didn't know Wilson Rawles, you didn't

647
00:36:31,760 --> 00:36:33,680
Speaker 1: know the story, you'd read the book and you'd be like,

648
00:36:33,920 --> 00:36:36,879
Speaker 1: this person did their research. Ye, and we begin with

649
00:36:36,920 --> 00:36:42,680
Speaker 1: the biographical, shocking biographical materials. But what it makes me

650
00:36:42,719 --> 00:36:45,160
Speaker 1: ask is where did he get this education? And he

651
00:36:45,200 --> 00:36:46,880
Speaker 1: said he had virtually note books in his home. You

652
00:36:46,880 --> 00:36:49,480
Speaker 1: could see he was very poor. How did he manage

653
00:36:49,520 --> 00:36:51,719
Speaker 1: to do this? I mean, he is a very good writer.

654
00:36:53,520 --> 00:36:59,719
Speaker 1: Let's hear what Mr Wilson has to say. Doing those

655
00:36:59,719 --> 00:37:02,760
Speaker 1: three years, as I bummed around all over the country,

656
00:37:03,239 --> 00:37:06,680
Speaker 1: I kept writing. I couldn't quit. Every chance I got,

657
00:37:06,719 --> 00:37:11,000
Speaker 1: i'd write on something. And sometimes she said I didn't

658
00:37:11,040 --> 00:37:14,200
Speaker 1: have money enough to buy a writing paper with. But

659
00:37:14,360 --> 00:37:17,359
Speaker 1: this writing had gotten such a hold on me that

660
00:37:18,200 --> 00:37:21,360
Speaker 1: I wouldn't let anything stand in my way. I I

661
00:37:21,440 --> 00:37:24,000
Speaker 1: used to go around in the alleys and strange little

662
00:37:24,040 --> 00:37:27,840
Speaker 1: town and I take the brown paper sacks from the

663
00:37:27,920 --> 00:37:30,800
Speaker 1: trash cans, and I cut the bottom of the mountain

664
00:37:30,880 --> 00:37:33,280
Speaker 1: spit am open, and I had a big sheet of paper,

665
00:37:34,239 --> 00:37:36,840
Speaker 1: take the brown paper from box cars and cut it

666
00:37:36,920 --> 00:37:39,920
Speaker 1: up into strips. I wrote a lot of stories on

667
00:37:39,920 --> 00:37:43,120
Speaker 1: that old brown paper, but I was so ashamed of

668
00:37:43,200 --> 00:37:47,600
Speaker 1: those stories and the writing. I couldn't spell anything. I

669
00:37:47,640 --> 00:37:50,719
Speaker 1: can't do very good to this day. I couldn't punctuate

670
00:37:50,760 --> 00:37:54,720
Speaker 1: any it. I just write one line after the other. Whoever,

671
00:37:54,760 --> 00:37:58,480
Speaker 1: my voice broke, there was a dash, there was no paragraph.

672
00:37:58,600 --> 00:38:01,239
Speaker 1: It's just one line after the other. I have the

673
00:38:01,280 --> 00:38:04,520
Speaker 1: old handwritten manuscript, and now I go to the school.

674
00:38:05,120 --> 00:38:07,239
Speaker 1: I take them with me sometime and show them to

675
00:38:07,320 --> 00:38:09,640
Speaker 1: the kids. Try to prove to him what a man

676
00:38:09,760 --> 00:38:14,000
Speaker 1: can do if he really wants to do it. The

677
00:38:14,120 --> 00:38:19,040
Speaker 1: literary mechanisms used by Mr Wilson are extraordinary, especially when

678
00:38:19,040 --> 00:38:21,799
Speaker 1: you consider his background. I mean, this guy wrote this

679
00:38:21,880 --> 00:38:26,279
Speaker 1: novel on brown paper sacks. This should inspire it's it

680
00:38:26,400 --> 00:38:28,680
Speaker 1: tells us that it's possible for the common man to

681
00:38:28,840 --> 00:38:33,840
Speaker 1: rise above challenges and achieve purpose. I've gotten more questions,

682
00:38:35,040 --> 00:38:39,279
Speaker 1: Professor Teuton, how is a book qualified as an American

683
00:38:39,840 --> 00:38:43,840
Speaker 1: literary classic? Like? What officially qualifies this is that the

684
00:38:43,880 --> 00:38:48,400
Speaker 1: amount of books sold. Is there some way to scale

685
00:38:48,480 --> 00:38:51,560
Speaker 1: the impact of a book on our culture or is

686
00:38:51,560 --> 00:38:54,120
Speaker 1: it an assessment that's hard to put your finger on.

687
00:38:54,200 --> 00:38:57,359
Speaker 1: You just know when you see it is a fine question. Now,

688
00:38:57,440 --> 00:39:01,520
Speaker 1: copies sold could actually count against a work and its greatness. Yes,

689
00:39:01,560 --> 00:39:04,160
Speaker 1: it could be considered a too popular but yeah, some

690
00:39:04,160 --> 00:39:06,640
Speaker 1: some novels can be considered, you know, too popular and

691
00:39:06,680 --> 00:39:09,719
Speaker 1: not a great literature. Nowadays, if you go into a bookstore,

692
00:39:09,800 --> 00:39:11,960
Speaker 1: we don't have are usually we don't see a fiction

693
00:39:12,000 --> 00:39:14,879
Speaker 1: section separated from a literature section, right, meaning that there's

694
00:39:14,880 --> 00:39:17,840
Speaker 1: a notion of low art and high art. Right. We

695
00:39:17,920 --> 00:39:20,840
Speaker 1: really worked against that, and we now think about it.

696
00:39:20,880 --> 00:39:22,480
Speaker 1: If you think about something. I'm looking right now on

697
00:39:22,520 --> 00:39:26,240
Speaker 1: my bookshelf here and I'm looking at Huckleberry Finn. And

698
00:39:26,640 --> 00:39:29,160
Speaker 1: you know, other great American writers are writing at the time,

699
00:39:29,239 --> 00:39:31,799
Speaker 1: and they were looking east, people like Henry James, he

700
00:39:31,840 --> 00:39:34,160
Speaker 1: would be an American, but set his novels in England.

701
00:39:34,280 --> 00:39:36,080
Speaker 1: And you have someone like Mark Twain come along, who

702
00:39:36,080 --> 00:39:38,719
Speaker 1: grew up on the Mississippi and reflects on his early

703
00:39:38,760 --> 00:39:41,440
Speaker 1: life on the Mississippi and invents his character Huck Finn

704
00:39:41,560 --> 00:39:43,640
Speaker 1: with this amazing vernacula that spends his time on the

705
00:39:43,719 --> 00:39:45,960
Speaker 1: river in the woods, and suddenly we have a great

706
00:39:46,000 --> 00:39:49,319
Speaker 1: work of American fiction. Now, huck Finn actually did sell well,

707
00:39:49,400 --> 00:39:51,959
Speaker 1: but was still considered very quickly to be a great

708
00:39:51,960 --> 00:39:54,799
Speaker 1: work in American literature because it gave voice to the

709
00:39:54,880 --> 00:39:58,480
Speaker 1: uniqueness of American life, right and the way people talked

710
00:39:58,520 --> 00:40:02,399
Speaker 1: in and of itself, the verna kular. It was authentically American. Yes,

711
00:40:02,600 --> 00:40:05,279
Speaker 1: there's that. So there's that element. It occurs on American land.

712
00:40:05,400 --> 00:40:08,720
Speaker 1: It expresses an American experience, even down to the voice,

713
00:40:08,880 --> 00:40:11,120
Speaker 1: the color of the language, of the way people dress

714
00:40:11,160 --> 00:40:13,239
Speaker 1: and talk. And that's what makes it great. The other

715
00:40:13,280 --> 00:40:15,279
Speaker 1: element that when we might think about what to makes

716
00:40:15,280 --> 00:40:18,759
Speaker 1: something very literary and and and worthy of discussion and

717
00:40:18,760 --> 00:40:21,040
Speaker 1: and and searching for meaning within it, is it usual

718
00:40:21,120 --> 00:40:22,840
Speaker 1: functions on a couple of different levels. You have the

719
00:40:22,880 --> 00:40:25,680
Speaker 1: story in itself, right, this is a boy, you know,

720
00:40:25,760 --> 00:40:27,640
Speaker 1: and where the red fern grows. This is a boy

721
00:40:27,640 --> 00:40:30,160
Speaker 1: who likes to go on coon hunts. There's your basic story.

722
00:40:30,239 --> 00:40:32,759
Speaker 1: And you think, well, you know, okay, that's interesting, let's

723
00:40:32,760 --> 00:40:34,319
Speaker 1: read about it. And you may see a book that

724
00:40:34,440 --> 00:40:36,680
Speaker 1: it just tells the you know, the daily experiences of

725
00:40:36,719 --> 00:40:38,440
Speaker 1: a way on a kuon hunt right, and that probably

726
00:40:38,480 --> 00:40:41,840
Speaker 1: wouldn't be that appealing to most people because they don't

727
00:40:41,880 --> 00:40:44,680
Speaker 1: have that experience in their in their background. Right. But

728
00:40:44,719 --> 00:40:47,720
Speaker 1: then a great rider will tell a story with depth,

729
00:40:47,840 --> 00:40:49,839
Speaker 1: meaning that when he goes in the coon hunt, he

730
00:40:49,960 --> 00:40:52,560
Speaker 1: learns about how to behave, how to treat your fellow

731
00:40:52,600 --> 00:40:56,240
Speaker 1: man right, the pitfalls of of lying and treachery, hunting

732
00:40:56,480 --> 00:41:01,400
Speaker 1: and ambition and resilience, all the all these these very

733
00:41:01,440 --> 00:41:04,520
Speaker 1: important values in the young man's character Billy begins to

734
00:41:04,520 --> 00:41:07,040
Speaker 1: to learn through his coon hunting. So the novel is

735
00:41:07,040 --> 00:41:09,120
Speaker 1: not just about coon hunting, but certainly about the very

736
00:41:09,280 --> 00:41:11,759
Speaker 1: notion of love itself. I mean, on page two forty

737
00:41:11,800 --> 00:41:13,560
Speaker 1: three in my book, I mean, this is when Mr

738
00:41:13,640 --> 00:41:17,319
Speaker 1: Kyle was the judge at the final competition, and when

739
00:41:17,320 --> 00:41:19,400
Speaker 1: he sees the way that Dan and Ann behave towards

740
00:41:19,400 --> 00:41:21,560
Speaker 1: each other, he says. Mr Kyle says, it's a shame

741
00:41:21,600 --> 00:41:24,160
Speaker 1: that people all over the world can't have that kind

742
00:41:24,160 --> 00:41:26,319
Speaker 1: of love in their hearts. He said, there would be

743
00:41:26,360 --> 00:41:29,680
Speaker 1: no wars, slaughter or murder, no greed or selfishness. It

744
00:41:29,719 --> 00:41:32,120
Speaker 1: would be the kind of world that God wants us

745
00:41:32,160 --> 00:41:36,440
Speaker 1: to have, a wonderful world. So there I bought this

746
00:41:36,520 --> 00:41:39,200
Speaker 1: new copy so I could write any listen, I have

747
00:41:39,600 --> 00:41:44,200
Speaker 1: the exact same phrase underlined in my book, and then

748
00:41:44,360 --> 00:41:47,120
Speaker 1: just just uh. Moments like that, And this is one

749
00:41:47,239 --> 00:41:50,160
Speaker 1: most explicit moments when when Wilson Rawls wants to really

750
00:41:50,200 --> 00:41:52,520
Speaker 1: let you know the depth of the story importance of it.

751
00:41:52,760 --> 00:41:55,160
Speaker 1: But other times he's very subtle. And so what makes

752
00:41:55,200 --> 00:41:58,000
Speaker 1: it a classic is its depth, Yes, and it's connection

753
00:41:58,360 --> 00:42:01,520
Speaker 1: to anybody. You don't have to be a coon hunter,

754
00:42:01,560 --> 00:42:04,359
Speaker 1: and it's it would be very easy to say that

755
00:42:05,360 --> 00:42:08,600
Speaker 1: point nine percent of people that love this book and

756
00:42:08,640 --> 00:42:11,919
Speaker 1: have read it have never and will never go coon

757
00:42:12,000 --> 00:42:16,080
Speaker 1: hunt in their life. But they received value and meaning

758
00:42:16,160 --> 00:42:18,520
Speaker 1: from this and connection to it. That's what makes it

759
00:42:18,560 --> 00:42:23,640
Speaker 1: a classic. I guess as a kid and into my adulthood,

760
00:42:23,880 --> 00:42:26,840
Speaker 1: I thought Where the Red Fern Grows was a regional

761
00:42:26,880 --> 00:42:29,600
Speaker 1: phenomena because I grew up within a couple of hours

762
00:42:29,600 --> 00:42:33,279
Speaker 1: of Taquah, Oklahoma, where the book was based. I was

763
00:42:33,360 --> 00:42:36,919
Speaker 1: completely oblivious to the wide reaching impact of the book.

764
00:42:37,280 --> 00:42:40,799
Speaker 1: Just in the last year, I've encountered multiple people from

765
00:42:40,880 --> 00:42:44,600
Speaker 1: far away in foreign places to me, like California, that

766
00:42:44,680 --> 00:42:48,160
Speaker 1: have said they were impacted by the book. I was shocked.

767
00:42:48,200 --> 00:42:52,000
Speaker 1: They've never heard of it. Here's my friend Andreas a Tai.

768
00:42:52,680 --> 00:42:56,160
Speaker 1: He's a video producer at Meat Eater, and he loves

769
00:42:56,200 --> 00:43:02,600
Speaker 1: the book. Andreas, So you read this book as a kid.

770
00:43:02,840 --> 00:43:05,560
Speaker 1: Why was this book meaningful to you that? There's so

771
00:43:05,560 --> 00:43:08,960
Speaker 1: many reasons. I think growing up in Orange County, California.

772
00:43:09,160 --> 00:43:11,919
Speaker 1: One of the big ones was the connection it brought

773
00:43:12,040 --> 00:43:14,560
Speaker 1: to media nature. When I was growing up, there was

774
00:43:14,600 --> 00:43:18,440
Speaker 1: still farmland, there was still space, but a lot of

775
00:43:18,480 --> 00:43:20,919
Speaker 1: it was disappearing very quickly. But the thing that there

776
00:43:21,080 --> 00:43:24,920
Speaker 1: wasn't a lot of in suburbia was the freedom. Like

777
00:43:25,000 --> 00:43:28,160
Speaker 1: young adults urine right, like that that freedom that the

778
00:43:28,280 --> 00:43:31,640
Speaker 1: character of protagonist has, It's like we all experienced that

779
00:43:31,880 --> 00:43:36,000
Speaker 1: as adolescent children. However he actually got that freedom. We

780
00:43:36,280 --> 00:43:39,000
Speaker 1: don't have that as much anymore. But seeing the protagonists

781
00:43:39,040 --> 00:43:41,279
Speaker 1: do that, that's fantastic. Like the fact that Billy was

782
00:43:41,360 --> 00:43:44,520
Speaker 1: able at twelve to like save fifty dollars in nineteen whatever,

783
00:43:44,920 --> 00:43:47,480
Speaker 1: the depression era, that's insane. Imagine how much money that

784
00:43:47,640 --> 00:43:51,960
Speaker 1: is and just all on his own, Like that is freedom.

785
00:43:52,000 --> 00:43:55,320
Speaker 1: Like removing the ozarks from this I don't even think

786
00:43:55,719 --> 00:43:58,080
Speaker 1: that we need this book to be in the Ozarks.

787
00:43:58,120 --> 00:44:00,520
Speaker 1: But this is a different kind of freedom that resonates

788
00:44:00,560 --> 00:44:04,000
Speaker 1: so nicely, especially when you're in school, and we were.

789
00:44:04,200 --> 00:44:06,719
Speaker 1: We had to read this book. It's a really So

790
00:44:06,760 --> 00:44:10,560
Speaker 1: this was assigned reading in Orange County, California. Yeah, not

791
00:44:10,640 --> 00:44:14,239
Speaker 1: just Orange County, like my wife read it in Lakeport, California,

792
00:44:14,400 --> 00:44:17,520
Speaker 1: which is ten and a half hours north of Orange County.

793
00:44:18,520 --> 00:44:20,320
Speaker 1: If you think about it, it's pretty wild that a

794
00:44:20,320 --> 00:44:23,759
Speaker 1: book about hunting raccoons with hounds is required reading in

795
00:44:23,840 --> 00:44:27,840
Speaker 1: some of America's most urban areas. Honestly, as a group

796
00:44:27,880 --> 00:44:30,799
Speaker 1: of people concerned about the future of hunting, we can

797
00:44:30,880 --> 00:44:35,560
Speaker 1: look to this as a pattern. Wilson Rawls masterfully combined

798
00:44:35,800 --> 00:44:40,040
Speaker 1: the human story with hunting. He humanized the coon hunter

799
00:44:40,400 --> 00:44:44,439
Speaker 1: and made him relevant. I just can't get away from

800
00:44:44,440 --> 00:44:47,560
Speaker 1: Wilson Rawls. When I first started making this podcast, I

801
00:44:47,640 --> 00:44:50,440
Speaker 1: planned to talk about him for like five minutes, but

802
00:44:50,600 --> 00:44:54,560
Speaker 1: his story just keeps interjecting itself into the relevance of

803
00:44:54,560 --> 00:45:00,880
Speaker 1: our discussion. Here's Professor to Tom. So when someone writes

804
00:45:00,920 --> 00:45:05,120
Speaker 1: an autobiographical novel, so it's it's fiction. So it's not

805
00:45:05,200 --> 00:45:08,480
Speaker 1: it's technically not a true story, but it reflects a

806
00:45:08,480 --> 00:45:11,480
Speaker 1: true story. How much of this do we know would

807
00:45:11,480 --> 00:45:15,120
Speaker 1: come from Wilson's life. We're kind of dis guessing assuming, yeah,

808
00:45:15,200 --> 00:45:18,000
Speaker 1: and it's it's uh, it's an error in scholarship to

809
00:45:18,120 --> 00:45:21,839
Speaker 1: assume that the fiction is an exact representation of the

810
00:45:21,840 --> 00:45:26,480
Speaker 1: author's life. But it's it's thoroughly acceptable to speculate and

811
00:45:26,640 --> 00:45:30,239
Speaker 1: looking to the biographical material. It's called biographical scholarship, where

812
00:45:30,239 --> 00:45:32,239
Speaker 1: we look into the life of the person and trying

813
00:45:32,280 --> 00:45:36,040
Speaker 1: to find elements of that person's life in in the

814
00:45:36,040 --> 00:45:39,200
Speaker 1: fiction to illuminate the meaning. So we know that Wilson Rawls,

815
00:45:39,239 --> 00:45:42,399
Speaker 1: for example, didn't have sibling dogs. He had he believe

816
00:45:42,400 --> 00:45:44,960
Speaker 1: he had one bluetick, one blue tick. Yeah, but he

817
00:45:45,000 --> 00:45:49,400
Speaker 1: didn't have redbone hounds. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I was gonna

818
00:45:49,400 --> 00:45:51,160
Speaker 1: say that's the one part of the story that I

819
00:45:51,200 --> 00:45:54,120
Speaker 1: bet isn't true. I bet Wilson Rawl's dog wasn't as

820
00:45:54,200 --> 00:45:57,480
Speaker 1: good as old a little Land. Yeah right, because if

821
00:45:57,480 --> 00:45:59,919
Speaker 1: I could go back and rewrap my childhood history of COONa,

822
00:46:00,320 --> 00:46:03,200
Speaker 1: my dogs would be better than they actually were, you see.

823
00:46:03,200 --> 00:46:05,680
Speaker 1: And that's the genius of fiction. It's your world. I

824
00:46:05,719 --> 00:46:07,839
Speaker 1: just actually, I wrote a novel I'm trying to get

825
00:46:07,880 --> 00:46:11,200
Speaker 1: published and once you go down that rabbit hole into fiction,

826
00:46:11,600 --> 00:46:14,239
Speaker 1: I mean, there's it's it's become so such a work

827
00:46:14,239 --> 00:46:16,759
Speaker 1: of pleasure because it's your world. Do you get to

828
00:46:16,800 --> 00:46:18,880
Speaker 1: paint the picture you want, paint whatever you want, and

829
00:46:18,920 --> 00:46:20,919
Speaker 1: there's something you want to correct from your childhood, you can't.

830
00:46:21,000 --> 00:46:23,920
Speaker 1: You can get the dog you wanted. Yeah. And the

831
00:46:23,960 --> 00:46:26,280
Speaker 1: reason they're red red bone hounds and not a bluetick

832
00:46:26,320 --> 00:46:28,600
Speaker 1: hount I believe is because they match the color of

833
00:46:28,640 --> 00:46:31,239
Speaker 1: the red fern that grows between them on the See.

834
00:46:31,239 --> 00:46:36,000
Speaker 1: There's a pretty strong literary move from someone who wasn't

835
00:46:36,040 --> 00:46:38,759
Speaker 1: trained in literature. Yeah, yeah, that makes perfect sense. I was.

836
00:46:38,880 --> 00:46:41,319
Speaker 1: My next question was gonna be why did he not

837
00:46:41,440 --> 00:46:44,200
Speaker 1: go with the blue ticks? Because I know coon hunters

838
00:46:44,280 --> 00:46:47,200
Speaker 1: and coon hunters like their breaths of dogs, and it's

839
00:46:47,200 --> 00:46:49,920
Speaker 1: hard to break somebody away from whatever they get attached to.

840
00:46:50,000 --> 00:46:51,719
Speaker 1: So I was really surprised to hear that he had

841
00:46:51,719 --> 00:46:53,640
Speaker 1: a blue tick and he went with red bone in

842
00:46:53,680 --> 00:46:59,319
Speaker 1: the In the book Red Bone Hounds, you say, I

843
00:46:59,480 --> 00:47:10,640
Speaker 1: want to introduce you to a real red bone man. Hello, Yeah,

844
00:47:10,719 --> 00:47:13,680
Speaker 1: it has been a while. We're just kind of peeking around.

845
00:47:14,040 --> 00:47:19,880
Speaker 1: This is my mom's this is where I raced, of course. Yeah,

846
00:47:19,360 --> 00:47:22,439
Speaker 1: that's where I grew up. Our first house was, well,

847
00:47:22,480 --> 00:47:24,800
Speaker 1: the first one is where I live, and we moved

848
00:47:24,840 --> 00:47:27,640
Speaker 1: in fifty eight up to that building out there, and

849
00:47:28,200 --> 00:47:30,320
Speaker 1: in the sixties and then they built this one. But anyway,

850
00:47:30,400 --> 00:47:41,840
Speaker 1: I'll be done. What's your name, buddy, I'm Clay skin Cap. Yeah,

851
00:47:41,960 --> 00:47:47,040
Speaker 1: that's handsome. I'll tell you. It's an awesome This is

852
00:47:47,080 --> 00:47:51,160
Speaker 1: my friend Ronnie Smith and his grandson Brentley. We found

853
00:47:51,160 --> 00:47:54,000
Speaker 1: ourselves at a beautiful fork in the road where I

854
00:47:54,040 --> 00:47:57,279
Speaker 1: want to bring us back into modern times. We've got

855
00:47:57,320 --> 00:48:00,279
Speaker 1: to understand a bit about coon hunting and red owned

856
00:48:00,320 --> 00:48:04,359
Speaker 1: hounds to understand this full picture. So far we've talked

857
00:48:04,400 --> 00:48:07,319
Speaker 1: about Wilson Rawls and the impact of his book. But

858
00:48:07,440 --> 00:48:10,440
Speaker 1: I want to plant us down in the life of

859
00:48:10,480 --> 00:48:15,759
Speaker 1: a real modern American coon hunter. And if anybody qualifies,

860
00:48:16,200 --> 00:48:19,960
Speaker 1: it's Mr Ronnie and we're going on a coon hunt.

861
00:48:24,120 --> 00:48:26,440
Speaker 1: So this is this is your home place, this is

862
00:48:26,480 --> 00:48:30,560
Speaker 1: your farm migrant, yes, sir, and my my grandfather, uh

863
00:48:30,760 --> 00:48:34,279
Speaker 1: was born about right down in this holler right here,

864
00:48:35,000 --> 00:48:37,680
Speaker 1: and they lost this place that it went out of

865
00:48:37,719 --> 00:48:41,399
Speaker 1: the family during the depression, and I was fortunate enough

866
00:48:41,440 --> 00:48:45,520
Speaker 1: to be able to buy it back, and it's like

867
00:48:45,600 --> 00:48:48,799
Speaker 1: coming home, you know. But this is a part of

868
00:48:48,840 --> 00:48:52,000
Speaker 1: the original with the come in on a stolen horse

869
00:48:52,120 --> 00:48:53,799
Speaker 1: or not. I don't know, but this is where my

870
00:48:53,880 --> 00:48:57,800
Speaker 1: grand my grandfather was born and race. Yep, man, what

871
00:48:57,920 --> 00:49:00,080
Speaker 1: a beautiful night, hu, It is a beautiful night, a

872
00:49:00,160 --> 00:49:04,480
Speaker 1: half moon half moon, stars are glowing. Sorrier, tell me

873
00:49:04,480 --> 00:49:07,440
Speaker 1: about these dogs. Well, this is uh, this is this

874
00:49:07,480 --> 00:49:11,880
Speaker 1: Isliza Jane right here, and she's eleven years old. She's

875
00:49:11,920 --> 00:49:14,880
Speaker 1: a grand Night champion. She's pretty good dog. Treat a

876
00:49:14,920 --> 00:49:16,719
Speaker 1: lot of coons with her and the other ones. He's

877
00:49:16,760 --> 00:49:18,960
Speaker 1: an eight year old male. I don't know if he's

878
00:49:19,000 --> 00:49:20,840
Speaker 1: wanted anything and the competitions or not. But I just

879
00:49:20,880 --> 00:49:22,359
Speaker 1: got him three or four months ago. I've been trained

880
00:49:22,400 --> 00:49:24,680
Speaker 1: quite a few coons with him. We're just still send

881
00:49:24,719 --> 00:49:28,560
Speaker 1: him down the road again. There should be use. I

882
00:49:28,600 --> 00:49:32,400
Speaker 1: don't hunt this one, I said. Hopefully they'll trick cone,

883
00:49:32,400 --> 00:49:33,920
Speaker 1: but we're gonna have a good time. But even if

884
00:49:33,960 --> 00:49:44,399
Speaker 1: they don't. Yeah, saw your is Ronnie's youngest son. We've

885
00:49:44,440 --> 00:49:47,719
Speaker 1: cut the dogs loose in to the starry Ozart night,

886
00:49:48,280 --> 00:49:52,040
Speaker 1: undoubtedly no different than many nights that Wilson Rawls would

887
00:49:52,040 --> 00:49:55,600
Speaker 1: have hunted less than fifty miles away. We're standing in

888
00:49:55,640 --> 00:50:01,919
Speaker 1: the dark listening for dogs. Did you hear a dog

889
00:50:01,960 --> 00:50:13,680
Speaker 1: bark the creek? Yeah, one of them, Liza. They might

890
00:50:13,800 --> 00:50:18,640
Speaker 1: treat coup. He just barks a lot, Aliza, don't work

891
00:50:18,719 --> 00:50:24,640
Speaker 1: for no reason. He does better than me. They'll get

892
00:50:24,680 --> 00:50:27,000
Speaker 1: that one trade where they're at. I'm sure I figured

893
00:50:27,040 --> 00:50:29,160
Speaker 1: there'd be if you around this pond. I've I've been

894
00:50:29,200 --> 00:50:30,680
Speaker 1: seeing a few around you when I've been around here

895
00:50:30,719 --> 00:50:34,319
Speaker 1: at night. They found I think, I don't know if

896
00:50:35,000 --> 00:50:36,839
Speaker 1: if you can hear it, but we just we were

897
00:50:36,880 --> 00:50:39,080
Speaker 1: hearing dogs off. How far you think they are two

898
00:50:39,120 --> 00:50:44,000
Speaker 1: and fifty yards? Yeah, just kind of something. We're listening

899
00:50:44,000 --> 00:50:46,920
Speaker 1: for him there there. They've struck it and they're trailing

900
00:50:46,960 --> 00:50:48,880
Speaker 1: a little bit. Not too hot though, is it not

901
00:50:49,040 --> 00:50:54,600
Speaker 1: too hot? Before we go to the dogs, I want

902
00:50:54,680 --> 00:50:57,439
Speaker 1: to learn a bit about Mr Ronnie's connection to coon

903
00:50:57,520 --> 00:51:01,239
Speaker 1: hunting and redbone hounds, because these two things created the

904
00:51:01,360 --> 00:51:05,799
Speaker 1: unlikely architecture by which Wilson Rawls put himself among the

905
00:51:05,840 --> 00:51:10,319
Speaker 1: literary greats of American fiction. This is myself and Mr

906
00:51:10,400 --> 00:51:17,759
Speaker 1: Ronnie back at the house. So Mr Ronnie how long

907
00:51:17,800 --> 00:51:19,960
Speaker 1: have you had red bones? My first when I was

908
00:51:20,000 --> 00:51:22,319
Speaker 1: about probably my dad had red bones when I was

909
00:51:22,360 --> 00:51:26,040
Speaker 1: just just a little fellow. The first I remember, I

910
00:51:26,160 --> 00:51:28,920
Speaker 1: was probably five or six, and he had a three

911
00:51:29,000 --> 00:51:32,600
Speaker 1: legged dog that he called Bob. It was dog, and

912
00:51:32,680 --> 00:51:34,719
Speaker 1: I'll tell you that something going short trick and he

913
00:51:35,080 --> 00:51:37,239
Speaker 1: out run most all the four legged dogs. Well, I

914
00:51:37,280 --> 00:51:39,480
Speaker 1: never knew anything. That can imagine if he had four legs,

915
00:51:40,080 --> 00:51:42,680
Speaker 1: he probably wouldn't win worth the nickel. You know. So

916
00:51:42,920 --> 00:51:46,680
Speaker 1: your dad started hunting red bones? What what time period

917
00:51:46,680 --> 00:51:48,839
Speaker 1: did that have been. That would have been, uh, all

918
00:51:48,920 --> 00:51:52,560
Speaker 1: in the early sixties, early sixties. And we meet hunted

919
00:51:52,600 --> 00:51:55,840
Speaker 1: and hide hunted. You know that we ate some coons

920
00:51:55,920 --> 00:51:58,480
Speaker 1: and sometimes glad to have it. You know. Yeah, things

921
00:51:58,520 --> 00:52:01,360
Speaker 1: were a little poor here in northwest Ark in those days.

922
00:52:01,520 --> 00:52:04,120
Speaker 1: So you grew up right here out here on this farm.

923
00:52:04,520 --> 00:52:06,879
Speaker 1: I'm within a half a mile to where I was born.

924
00:52:07,239 --> 00:52:09,719
Speaker 1: How long has your family been coon hunting that you

925
00:52:09,719 --> 00:52:12,440
Speaker 1: can track? My dad told me the story before I

926
00:52:12,480 --> 00:52:15,560
Speaker 1: was born that the first raccoon that they ever seen

927
00:52:15,560 --> 00:52:18,520
Speaker 1: in this county. People come from miles around to say it. Well,

928
00:52:18,520 --> 00:52:21,640
Speaker 1: whoever whoever treated that coon, I couldn't say who they

929
00:52:21,680 --> 00:52:23,839
Speaker 1: made this shout it out with tree. I don't know

930
00:52:24,440 --> 00:52:27,120
Speaker 1: that there weren't any coons here. That would have been

931
00:52:27,360 --> 00:52:29,640
Speaker 1: when he was a young man in the I supposed

932
00:52:29,680 --> 00:52:33,160
Speaker 1: early fifties. And so your grandson is sitting here with us,

933
00:52:33,160 --> 00:52:36,759
Speaker 1: and you said he's a fifth generation. My grandpa was

934
00:52:36,800 --> 00:52:39,520
Speaker 1: a was a hide hunter, but it was possums and skunks.

935
00:52:40,040 --> 00:52:43,400
Speaker 1: There wasn't any coons here and maybe maybe a bobcat

936
00:52:43,440 --> 00:52:45,440
Speaker 1: once in a while, you know. So that was and

937
00:52:45,520 --> 00:52:48,160
Speaker 1: he'd done that with hounds. Then my dad and of

938
00:52:48,200 --> 00:52:51,640
Speaker 1: course myself and my boys, and then there's my grandson.

939
00:52:51,719 --> 00:52:53,600
Speaker 1: So he'd be the fifth generation that I know of,

940
00:52:53,920 --> 00:52:56,759
Speaker 1: you pretty much right here on this spot. And so

941
00:52:57,200 --> 00:52:59,920
Speaker 1: y'all have hunted red bones, well, we've We've had a

942
00:53:00,120 --> 00:53:03,440
Speaker 1: few others, and I've handled in in some uk C

943
00:53:03,640 --> 00:53:06,520
Speaker 1: nine hunts, in the World Championships and things. I've handled

944
00:53:06,560 --> 00:53:09,480
Speaker 1: some different breeds of dogs for friends of mine, but

945
00:53:09,520 --> 00:53:12,400
Speaker 1: my mind stays always been red dogs. If you were

946
00:53:12,400 --> 00:53:15,400
Speaker 1: trying to describe the different breeds of dogs to people

947
00:53:15,440 --> 00:53:19,040
Speaker 1: that had no context for hounds, would there be anything

948
00:53:19,080 --> 00:53:21,719
Speaker 1: that would stand out to you about red bones that

949
00:53:21,719 --> 00:53:24,440
Speaker 1: would be different than another breed. They're pleasing to that.

950
00:53:24,719 --> 00:53:27,720
Speaker 1: They're beautiful dog to look at. But you know, we

951
00:53:27,719 --> 00:53:30,640
Speaker 1: we hunt them for the tree and abilities and the

952
00:53:30,760 --> 00:53:34,480
Speaker 1: natural born instincts and these dogs and they're eager to

953
00:53:34,560 --> 00:53:37,359
Speaker 1: please and not quite as hardheaded as some of them.

954
00:53:37,719 --> 00:53:39,680
Speaker 1: You know, maybe a little plothhound or something like that.

955
00:53:40,320 --> 00:53:45,240
Speaker 1: Easy now, easy, now, he's ribbing me about hunting plothounds.

956
00:53:45,280 --> 00:53:47,560
Speaker 1: That's what coon hunters do to each other. You know.

957
00:53:47,600 --> 00:53:51,200
Speaker 1: They're just born natural tree dogs and if if you're

958
00:53:51,280 --> 00:53:54,400
Speaker 1: hunting tree minded game, you better have something that'll They

959
00:53:54,440 --> 00:53:56,560
Speaker 1: don't matter how fast he is, if he won't stay

960
00:53:56,560 --> 00:53:59,000
Speaker 1: there until you get there. You know, would you agree

961
00:53:59,000 --> 00:54:03,040
Speaker 1: with me in saying that of the six or seven

962
00:54:03,440 --> 00:54:07,919
Speaker 1: breeds of u k C Registered tree dogs treehounds, they're

963
00:54:07,960 --> 00:54:10,920
Speaker 1: all gonna kind of do the same thing. A lot

964
00:54:11,000 --> 00:54:13,440
Speaker 1: of it is aesthetics. It's kind of like what kind

965
00:54:13,440 --> 00:54:14,920
Speaker 1: of truck do you want to dress? Do you want

966
00:54:14,920 --> 00:54:18,000
Speaker 1: to drive a Chevrolet, a GMC, a Dodge? I mean,

967
00:54:18,080 --> 00:54:21,120
Speaker 1: is that about right? It's about right? But the types

968
00:54:21,200 --> 00:54:24,279
Speaker 1: of hound have changed in forty years. We used to

969
00:54:24,320 --> 00:54:27,440
Speaker 1: have a cold trailing dog with a superb nose that

970
00:54:27,520 --> 00:54:29,919
Speaker 1: could man. You'd think of a bloodhound. They could trail

971
00:54:29,960 --> 00:54:32,680
Speaker 1: a coon two days old things like, you know, and

972
00:54:32,800 --> 00:54:35,400
Speaker 1: have the coon most of the time. But today's dogs

973
00:54:35,440 --> 00:54:37,279
Speaker 1: for the most part, are not that way. Tell me

974
00:54:37,400 --> 00:54:39,920
Speaker 1: why back in the day you would have needed a

975
00:54:40,000 --> 00:54:44,080
Speaker 1: dog like that and why today's dogs are different. Well,

976
00:54:44,080 --> 00:54:46,319
Speaker 1: it goes back to how we started out here, that

977
00:54:46,800 --> 00:54:49,279
Speaker 1: there weren't any coons in this county. Coon hads got

978
00:54:49,360 --> 00:54:52,520
Speaker 1: up to I can remember forty eight dollars, which was

979
00:54:52,560 --> 00:54:54,920
Speaker 1: a tremendous amount of money, and that was the early

980
00:54:54,960 --> 00:54:58,759
Speaker 1: to middle seventies. And uh, you didn't go every night

981
00:54:59,320 --> 00:55:02,120
Speaker 1: and tree fire of coon's. You might go tonight and

982
00:55:02,239 --> 00:55:05,040
Speaker 1: tree a coon and you might skip five nights trying,

983
00:55:05,160 --> 00:55:07,759
Speaker 1: you know, so if you had to have some gun

984
00:55:07,800 --> 00:55:09,960
Speaker 1: that didn't get fooled too easy. You know, if a

985
00:55:10,040 --> 00:55:12,400
Speaker 1: coon would tap tree, you know, would run up the

986
00:55:12,400 --> 00:55:15,480
Speaker 1: tree and jump in different things, and the old hounds

987
00:55:15,560 --> 00:55:19,040
Speaker 1: that I had would check that tree. Today's dogs don't check.

988
00:55:19,640 --> 00:55:22,080
Speaker 1: They roll up to that tree and closer eyes and

989
00:55:22,120 --> 00:55:25,400
Speaker 1: they just forget everything except let's wait till we get here. Okay.

990
00:55:25,520 --> 00:55:28,640
Speaker 1: So when when the coons were scarce and when we

991
00:55:28,640 --> 00:55:32,080
Speaker 1: were meeting hide hunting, you needed a different time, you

992
00:55:32,360 --> 00:55:34,319
Speaker 1: had to take advantage of every track that you got.

993
00:55:34,480 --> 00:55:36,720
Speaker 1: So if your dogs found a coon, if it was old,

994
00:55:37,040 --> 00:55:39,719
Speaker 1: you wanted them to find it. So why are they

995
00:55:39,760 --> 00:55:41,880
Speaker 1: like they are today? Well, they've just bred them up

996
00:55:41,880 --> 00:55:44,799
Speaker 1: to be a little what I call hot and hot nose.

997
00:55:45,280 --> 00:55:47,719
Speaker 1: There's such an emphasis in the night hunts, and night

998
00:55:47,800 --> 00:55:50,759
Speaker 1: hunts is a big deal when you go that's the competition,

999
00:55:50,800 --> 00:55:54,040
Speaker 1: petition hunt night hunt. In the competition, you get extra

1000
00:55:54,160 --> 00:55:57,040
Speaker 1: points to be the first dog tree and you being

1001
00:55:57,080 --> 00:55:59,680
Speaker 1: able to declare that dog treade. So when it come

1002
00:55:59,719 --> 00:56:02,000
Speaker 1: around the tree and you know, you get more points.

1003
00:56:02,040 --> 00:56:04,640
Speaker 1: People figured out a way to speed dead up a

1004
00:56:04,680 --> 00:56:07,120
Speaker 1: little bit. Maybe they mixed a little of this, or

1005
00:56:07,160 --> 00:56:09,560
Speaker 1: mixed a little different breeds in there, who knows. There's

1006
00:56:09,600 --> 00:56:12,840
Speaker 1: all kinds of stories, but that was the reasoning behind it.

1007
00:56:13,080 --> 00:56:15,759
Speaker 1: So they wanted a dog that would lock onto a

1008
00:56:15,840 --> 00:56:19,440
Speaker 1: tree quicker. But I guess the thing even behind that

1009
00:56:19,560 --> 00:56:22,120
Speaker 1: is now we have a ton of coons, ton of coons.

1010
00:56:22,440 --> 00:56:25,600
Speaker 1: I found over time that dogs seem to miss tree

1011
00:56:25,640 --> 00:56:27,759
Speaker 1: a lot more coons now than they did in those

1012
00:56:27,840 --> 00:56:30,719
Speaker 1: days because they checked harder, and maybe the coons don't

1013
00:56:30,800 --> 00:56:32,839
Speaker 1: run as hard. I don't know. But it doesn't seem

1014
00:56:32,880 --> 00:56:34,839
Speaker 1: to be quite as difficult as it did as a

1015
00:56:34,840 --> 00:56:37,120
Speaker 1: young fellow to just get out and tricks, get out

1016
00:56:37,120 --> 00:56:42,239
Speaker 1: and trick coon. You know. I keep going back to

1017
00:56:42,320 --> 00:56:46,240
Speaker 1: the question of why is coon hunting so culturally iconic,

1018
00:56:46,600 --> 00:56:50,640
Speaker 1: especially in the South and Midwest. Why was Wilson Rawls

1019
00:56:50,760 --> 00:56:55,000
Speaker 1: imprinted so deeply by it. I think it's a complex answer.

1020
00:56:55,640 --> 00:56:58,640
Speaker 1: It's that we interact with the world at night. It's

1021
00:56:58,719 --> 00:57:02,360
Speaker 1: man's connection to a dog, it's the adventure. But I

1022
00:57:02,400 --> 00:57:04,160
Speaker 1: think a lot of it has to do with what

1023
00:57:04,360 --> 00:57:07,480
Speaker 1: Mr Ronnie has alluded to. There was a time when

1024
00:57:07,480 --> 00:57:11,480
Speaker 1: a good hound was extremely valuable, he said. In the

1025
00:57:11,520 --> 00:57:15,279
Speaker 1: middle nineteen seventies, about the time the original movie came out,

1026
00:57:15,600 --> 00:57:18,080
Speaker 1: coon hides went for as high as forty eight dollars

1027
00:57:18,080 --> 00:57:21,640
Speaker 1: per hide in the commercial fur markets. Raccoon hides are

1028
00:57:21,760 --> 00:57:25,560
Speaker 1: used all over the world for fur jackets, trim on jackets,

1029
00:57:25,600 --> 00:57:29,560
Speaker 1: and hats for stuff. Is really cool, and I think

1030
00:57:29,560 --> 00:57:33,240
Speaker 1: it's coming back into fashion. To put that number of

1031
00:57:33,320 --> 00:57:37,600
Speaker 1: forty eight dollars into perspective, minimum wage was two dollars

1032
00:57:37,720 --> 00:57:42,520
Speaker 1: and thirty cents an hour in nineteen treeing one prime

1033
00:57:42,640 --> 00:57:45,440
Speaker 1: coon would be equivalent to working over twenty hours that

1034
00:57:45,560 --> 00:57:48,960
Speaker 1: minimum wage. And I don't know about you hillbillies, but

1035
00:57:49,080 --> 00:57:51,720
Speaker 1: that sounds like a good way for hill billy like

1036
00:57:51,840 --> 00:57:55,920
Speaker 1: me to make money. A good hound was extremely valuable,

1037
00:57:56,240 --> 00:58:00,000
Speaker 1: especially to a poor family, and that monetary value build

1038
00:58:00,200 --> 00:58:03,840
Speaker 1: a deep cultural value to tree in a coon, which

1039
00:58:03,920 --> 00:58:07,720
Speaker 1: is what we still have to this day. Though coon

1040
00:58:07,880 --> 00:58:11,680
Speaker 1: hides are of a little monetary value today usually a

1041
00:58:11,760 --> 00:58:14,880
Speaker 1: hide is worth less than five dollars, but the imprint

1042
00:58:14,960 --> 00:58:18,600
Speaker 1: of the days of great value is still alive. It's

1043
00:58:18,600 --> 00:58:21,640
Speaker 1: a cultural artifact. When I was in high school in

1044
00:58:21,680 --> 00:58:25,240
Speaker 1: western Arkansas, I once to remember driving my Chevy S

1045
00:58:25,280 --> 00:58:27,920
Speaker 1: ten four by four pick up to the Walmart parking

1046
00:58:27,960 --> 00:58:30,880
Speaker 1: lot and meeting a fur buyer who was making his

1047
00:58:30,960 --> 00:58:34,600
Speaker 1: way through our town. I brought him eight case skin

1048
00:58:34,920 --> 00:58:40,640
Speaker 1: frozen coon hides in not ironically Walmart sacks. These coons

1049
00:58:40,640 --> 00:58:43,560
Speaker 1: have been treated by my blue tick town named Thunder,

1050
00:58:43,840 --> 00:58:47,000
Speaker 1: who was not very good. The buyer looked at the

1051
00:58:47,080 --> 00:58:50,800
Speaker 1: hides and commented on the dog sign on them, meaning

1052
00:58:50,840 --> 00:58:53,240
Speaker 1: they've been chewed on a little bit, and he said,

1053
00:58:53,480 --> 00:58:57,880
Speaker 1: I'll give you eight dollars a hide, and I absolutely agreed.

1054
00:58:58,440 --> 00:59:00,600
Speaker 1: I've never in my life been more out of sixty.

1055
00:59:01,720 --> 00:59:04,240
Speaker 1: I can't recall what I did with it, but the

1056
00:59:04,360 --> 00:59:09,400
Speaker 1: cash was meaningful. After listening to the hounds trail a coon,

1057
00:59:09,960 --> 00:59:13,880
Speaker 1: Mr Ronnie and Brentley finally say Liza Jane is treed.

1058
00:59:14,400 --> 00:59:16,440
Speaker 1: We jump in the truck to get a little closer.

1059
00:59:17,120 --> 00:59:19,920
Speaker 1: Things are a bit different since Billy Coleman hunted in

1060
00:59:19,960 --> 00:59:35,240
Speaker 1: these hills. You guarantee she's gotta said. I like that confidence.

1061
00:59:37,200 --> 00:59:43,120
Speaker 1: I bet you bet fifty two dollars she's gotta coon. Alright,

1062
00:59:43,200 --> 00:59:59,880
Speaker 1: let's go see. Oh boy, oh boy, the injured. Sure

1063
01:00:00,520 --> 01:00:06,840
Speaker 1: you don't want Liza Jane is barking at the base

1064
01:00:06,920 --> 01:00:09,360
Speaker 1: of a dead hollow treat. That's what we call a

1065
01:00:09,440 --> 01:00:12,680
Speaker 1: den treat. Billy Coleman would have cut it down, but

1066
01:00:12,880 --> 01:00:16,480
Speaker 1: Mr Ronnie is happy just petting his dog and calling

1067
01:00:16,520 --> 01:00:21,200
Speaker 1: it good. The raccoon one. Brentley and I call our

1068
01:00:21,320 --> 01:00:24,560
Speaker 1: bet a drawl. We both knew it wasn't a real bet,

1069
01:00:24,840 --> 01:00:39,240
Speaker 1: and we didn't shake on it. I continued to be

1070
01:00:39,320 --> 01:00:43,320
Speaker 1: amazed at the response that humanity gives someone who's humble

1071
01:00:43,680 --> 01:00:47,120
Speaker 1: and authentic. This humility I speak of covers the real

1072
01:00:47,200 --> 01:00:52,160
Speaker 1: life Wilson Rawls and its fictional character Billy Coleman. Secondly,

1073
01:00:52,360 --> 01:00:55,240
Speaker 1: I'm amazed that a coon hunting story has been so

1074
01:00:55,360 --> 01:00:59,760
Speaker 1: widely read and accepted by society at large. This story

1075
01:01:00,040 --> 01:01:04,240
Speaker 1: and sends human experience and personal history, and people can't

1076
01:01:04,280 --> 01:01:07,320
Speaker 1: help but love it. I'm not sure how to take

1077
01:01:07,360 --> 01:01:10,920
Speaker 1: Wilson Rawls not talking about his checkered past, and perhaps

1078
01:01:10,960 --> 01:01:14,120
Speaker 1: he did, and it's just not recorded. It's encouraging to

1079
01:01:14,200 --> 01:01:16,480
Speaker 1: think that he found a way to move past the

1080
01:01:16,600 --> 01:01:21,200
Speaker 1: character flaws of his youth. Perhaps Billy Coleman's character is

1081
01:01:21,240 --> 01:01:24,000
Speaker 1: who he wished he'd been as a young man, and

1082
01:01:24,040 --> 01:01:27,720
Speaker 1: in this creative way, perhaps he righted the wrong by

1083
01:01:27,800 --> 01:01:30,840
Speaker 1: leaving such a strong deposit of character in the form

1084
01:01:30,840 --> 01:01:34,600
Speaker 1: of this timeless story that won't be snuffed out by time.

1085
01:01:35,360 --> 01:01:39,280
Speaker 1: When I think about American hunting, which is deeply personal

1086
01:01:39,360 --> 01:01:42,720
Speaker 1: to me, I realize even more how it's a part

1087
01:01:42,800 --> 01:01:47,560
Speaker 1: of our collective American story, it's part of our identity.

1088
01:01:47,840 --> 01:01:52,120
Speaker 1: And there are ideologies that are currently interested in snuffing

1089
01:01:52,160 --> 01:01:56,600
Speaker 1: out many parts of our hunting lifestyle, including hunting with dogs,

1090
01:01:56,840 --> 01:02:00,280
Speaker 1: which is often a target of anti hunting sentiment. And

1091
01:02:00,360 --> 01:02:03,920
Speaker 1: I'll pound the table and declare that if our ability

1092
01:02:04,000 --> 01:02:07,640
Speaker 1: to hunt with hounds is stripped away from us. That

1093
01:02:07,800 --> 01:02:11,120
Speaker 1: part of our humanity is also being stripped away, and

1094
01:02:11,200 --> 01:02:13,680
Speaker 1: you'd think we'd realized by now that that's not good

1095
01:02:13,720 --> 01:02:17,040
Speaker 1: for anybody. It's my hope that this series will be

1096
01:02:17,040 --> 01:02:21,680
Speaker 1: a celebration of a literary masterpiece portraying rural America that

1097
01:02:21,920 --> 01:02:26,040
Speaker 1: made it into the mainstream. On this episode, we've introduced

1098
01:02:26,040 --> 01:02:31,200
Speaker 1: Professor Seawan Teuton, Stewart Peterson, and Ronnie Smith. In part

1099
01:02:31,200 --> 01:02:33,600
Speaker 1: two of this series, we're going to get deeper into

1100
01:02:33,680 --> 01:02:37,320
Speaker 1: the book and we'll hear about Mr Stewart's experience as

1101
01:02:37,320 --> 01:02:42,320
Speaker 1: a rising childhood actor and why he quit. And we'll

1102
01:02:42,440 --> 01:02:45,560
Speaker 1: learn more about the nuts and bolts of coon hunting

1103
01:02:45,680 --> 01:02:50,919
Speaker 1: with Mr Ronnie. It's guaranteed to be good and insightful.

1104
01:02:51,440 --> 01:02:55,880
Speaker 1: It sure was for me. Thanks so much for listening

1105
01:02:55,920 --> 01:03:00,400
Speaker 1: to Bear Grades. Please share our podcast with friend and foe.

1106
01:03:01,040 --> 01:03:05,120
Speaker 1: And hey, those bear grease hats that everybody loves are

1107
01:03:05,120 --> 01:03:08,200
Speaker 1: finally back in stock on the Mediator website, so go

1108
01:03:08,320 --> 01:03:12,440
Speaker 1: get them. And hey, that black Panther believer hat is

1109
01:03:12,440 --> 01:03:15,360
Speaker 1: on the website too. You can check that out at

1110
01:03:15,440 --> 01:03:19,240
Speaker 1: the Mediator dot com. And hey, we'll hear you next

1111
01:03:19,320 --> 01:03:22,560
Speaker 1: week on the render talking about all this stuff